A woman to watch!

So I am a mixed race (half French, half senegalese) , born in France but raised in Senegal (from 18 months old to 18 years old). I then went back to France to study and I did my Master degree in Shanghai and worked there in a digital marketing agency. As I am a curious person, I studied and worked in several countries (Russia, Hong-Kong, Egypt, Cape-Verde).

I went back to Senegal in 2016 and created my own company in 2017 (Tandem Agency). Since then, we have worked with several companies, NGO or associations for the marketing & communication campaigns, events, press conferences, product launch etc.

But since 2020, I created a sport department name : JÄB

Because sport is my real passion. One one side, my mum Awa Dione is doing car races. She is one of the first women here in Senegal to drive with men. And she is still passionate about this (last year, at 69 years old, she did a race again).

And on the other side, my grand-father is Idrissa Dione, a boxer. He was born in 1929 and had been senegalese champion, and 2 times European champion (in the 50s). After Battling Siki, he is the senegalese boxer that succeeded at an international level. Unfortunately, he had to stop his career earlier, at 28 because of a finger he received in his eyes during a fight. After that, he went back to Senegal and has been the national director of the team and then a certified coach (before we had a « Africa team » that he was coaching).

So on my side, I really grew up with the sport values. At 15 years old, I wanted to practice boxing but my grandfather was not really ok with this (I assume because he wanted to protect me). So I started boxing in 2012, when I was living in Hong-Kong. And until now, I am boxing as it brings a lot of benefits in my life.

So of course, sometimes I have regrets of not having a professional career in boxing but now, I want to also have an impact. And this is why I created JÄB I 2020. The goal of JÄB is really to promote our sports, work with athletes to help them find sponsors, partners, with associations or clubs for their communication. And I am also a focus on initiating youth and making sport more accessible.

Here are examples of some activities that Celia did :

• A car race only for women in Dakar (we had 24 women who participated – we were giving them the car and equipment.) The goal was for them to discover this discipline
• We developed a program called « pink gloves » only for women. So the first part for them is to discover boxing and then at the end, we discuss about our challenges in life, work etc. and how sport can also help
• Road-trip in Senegal : Here in Senegal, kids don’t have a lot of activities after school or during their holidays. Here also the goal is to initiate the youth to sports (with a focus on boxing). For each event we give importance to having at least half of the children who are girls.
• We try to help some senegalese boxers to develop their career. And the one we are very proud of how he is evolving is the heavyweight Diarga Baldé. And he is in the club of the world Champion Souleymane Mbaye with whom we have been closely working since 2018.
• Always in the mindset of transmission, we are launching our “Jab talks” so that professionals can talk to the youth regarding a specific theme.
• We are also currently developing a card game to tell our story to the youth.