SaharaMarathon

Nowhere to turn

Mattia — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 18:46:19 +0000

An interesting document on the current political and human rights situation of the Saharawi population, published by the Robert F.Kennedy Center For Justice and Human Rights:

NOWHERE TO TURN:
THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE FAILURE TO MONITOR HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN WESTERN SAHARA AND TINDOUF REFUGEE CAMPS

PDF Report

Delivery of sport equipment of SaharaMarathon 2013 from Spain

Mattia — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 18:38:18 +0000

Part of the sport equipment that was supposed to arrive at the camps with the SaharaMarathon 2013 charter has been delivered overland by Brahim Chej, one of the Saharawi SaharaMarathon organizers.

SaharaMarathon haven’t stopped: new projects are running

Mattia — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 21:58:46 +0000

SaharaMarathon has its own projects, but many more activities and projects are started and followed by people or associations in some way linked to SaharaMarathon, that collaborates with SaharaMarathon, and that in many cases have known the Saharawis through the SaharaMarathon.

These are the activities of the various groups that took part to the recent trip to the camps:

Association ElOuali (that along with Proyecto Sahara organizes the SaharaMarathon)

Project to improve and facilitate scholarization of children of Tifariti, in the freed territories
The children in Tifariti have many difficulties to go to school, because of the distance from their homes, that are sparse in the territory, and because of the absence of any kind of refectory.
The project aims at facilitate the participation to the lessons, by offering transport and a refectory inside the school, along with the necessary food. Moreover improvements to the school are planned, like electricity, water, furnitures.

Milk camels
The association in the past bought milk camels and is contributing to their necessities. These camels can produce good quantities of extremely proteic and nutrient milk, that is distributed to childrens and elders who need it.

Ceramic
The group revised the production of ceramics in Dajla, build with the funding of a participant of the SaharaMarathon. The ceramic pedants here produced have been bought from the laboratory and used as present in chocolate easter egg sold in Italy.

ElOuali and City of Ravenna
Healthcare project to monitor and evaluate the healthcare facilities in the freed territories, and gynecologic visits in the Smara camp. It included formation of the obstetricians and to other healthcare personnel.

PeaceGames
Sport teachers in the schools
Management of the sport center of ElAyoun and formation in ElAyoun and Smara of young Saharawis to teach sport and games to children in primary schools. The teacher receive an economic help for their activity.

Rubens and Fabio
Participants to past editions of the SaharaMarathon, they have sent a lot of sport material, and with the help of their city they have sent a second hand small pullman to help transport at Afapredesa (association of families of missing saharawis).
Moreover they are taking part to the Tifariti School project by taking care of transport and its expenses, and are helping the SaharaMarathon sport project

Salam Association
Medals Project
Payment of the salaries to the works, and improvements of the quality of the medals, with the collaboration of the ceramics laboratory.

If you are interested in these projects, please contact us!

Trip to the camps and SaharaMarathon 2012 project

Mattia — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 08:19:57 +0000

After the cancellation of the marathon we had to wait almost one month to travel to the Saharawi camps, where we met our collaborators, we evaluated together the future of SaharaMarathon, we revised the running projects and laid the foundation of new ones.
The project directly financed by SaharaMarathon in 2012 consisted of the creation of athletic practioners groups in each fo the five camps. The aim was to stimulate boys and girls in participating to training regularly, 4 times a week, followed by a coach.
After each training the group would have together a small refreshing meal, based on fruit juice, cookies, fruit, dades, bread and cheese, also to create another situation of aggregation.
The training was basically some preparatory exercises, run and then some stretching.
SaharaMarathon committed to pay a small salary to the trainers and to pay all the expenses for the meals.

We’ve been very please by the results, even we didn’t have the occasion to see them participate to the race, because we noticed a good participation to the project and a lot of enthusiasm.
The groups were formed by 15-25 participants, with ages varying between 12 and 18. There’s been a good participation of girls, that in the Dakhla camp group were the majority.
The trainers showed us the pictures of the trainings, and suggested us how to improve the project.
The Italian ong PeaceGames (www.peacegamesuisp.org) that collaborates with us, while at the camps for their own project of formation of sports educators for children, helped us giving a basic, first level, course to the trainers.
Their first request has been to participate to a more advanced course, to improve their preparation.
The second request has been to have better training equipment, expecially shoes.

SaharaMarathon, being cancelled, has not been able to get the funds to continue the project in 2013 from the participants, as usual, but the project can’t stop.
We already received some donations from past participants and from participants that missed this last edition.
Moreover, a past participant now very committed on helping SaharaMarathon and the Saharawis has destined to this project part of a large quantity of sport shoes that will be sent to the camps, shoes collected thanks to the solidarity of runners in his hometown.

Distance Running article on SaharaMarathon cancellation

Mattia — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 22:51:33 +0000

Postponed the SaharaMarathon 2013

Mattia — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 10:42:38 +0000

The Saharawi Government and the organizing committee of the Sahara Marathon have agreed to postpone the Sahara Marathon 2013 by major causes outside the organization. As is well known, the recent war in Mali and the tragic kidnapping occurred in Algeria, have caused a huge international social alarm that forced us to take this sad decision. Given the instability in the region and threats of further violence from terrorist groups against Western targets, the Saharawi government temporarily paralyzed all the visa processes and have repatriated all the displaced social workers. In these circumstances and knowing the diffusion of the Sahara Marathon in the media should be irresponsible to travel to Algerian territory with a group of nearly 200 runners from over 20 countries. Furthermore, most of these countries have made serious appeals to their citizens not to travel to the area.

Sahrawi and Algerian authorities have done a commendable job as far as security is concerned in recent months, but the organization ofa long distance race in these conditions required an enormous logistic and financial effort, which morally we cannot demand to a people surviving in refugees camps. With all the measures taken by the authorities, the goal is to avoid any risk to the solidary runners and Saharawi people themselves.

With the conviction that this instability in the area should be temporary, we hope to make soon a new call for the next Sahara Marathon, a race with a huge international reputation thanks to the support of the runners and the hospitality they receive from theSaharawi families. The organizers and the Sahrawi Ministry of Youth and Sports will go on with some actions to support the humanitarian projects of the Sahara Marathon. The first is the organization in the coming days of the children’s races and other local activities for major victims of this situation that are the Sahrawi refugees. Furthermore we will convene in different European cities charitable races under the umbrella of the Sahara Marathon, with the aim, among others, to raise funds to send a truck with all the sports equipment and solidarity that we have received. The great sadness that means for the team and for the runners who prepared the trip excited, cannot weaken our commitment and work to help these people and to demand the justice denied for 38 years to Western Sahara .

For you, who were registered to join us in this unique solidarity experience, we can only apologize for the inconvenience and disappointment that we know that this suspension entails, but we hope you can understand the situation created by these international events with unusual severity. To all of you who had already payed the registration fee, in the coming days we will pay you back the payed amount. For this, we ask you to send us an email with the following information:

Bank account holder
Bank
Account number
Personal address

As you can imagine, for the solidarity project and the organization, the cancellation is a moral setback, but also economic. If anyone would like to purchase official T-shirts or wants to support the project, we greatly appreciate it.

The Sahara Marathon has been over the years a speaker that amplified the cry of the Saharawi people and will continue doing it until we reach our main objective: to organize this race close to the Atlantic Ocean. Hopefully we can continue running and working together.

Thank you very much
Regards

And the tshirt for the children race!

Mattia — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 22:04:10 +0000

The 2013 tshirt!

Mattia — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 14:52:54 +0000

The new 2013 medal!

Mattia — Sat, 08 Dec 2012 23:18:28 +0000

The Sahara Marathon: Adventure racing meets human rights

Mattia — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 17:37:17 +0000

http://matadornetwork.com/sports/the-sahara-marathon-adventure-racing-meets-human-rights/