By Firmain Eric Mbadinga
As a child growing up in Paris, Jean-Luc Agboyibo's introduction to basketball was a slam dunk. He immersed himself in the sport, finding a sense of divine purpose beyond the joy of a basket.
Jean-Luc would understand many years later how his passion for basketball fostered his spirit of giving as much as it infused in him the energy of the sport.
In 2012, the young man founded the Leading Youth, Sport and Development, an association that uses sports, especially basketball, as a tool for the education and personal development of girls and boys in his native Togo and Côte d’Ivoire.
The organisation's pet project, Milédou, partners with the NBA to deliver what has become a window to an opportunity-laden future for scores of young African talents waiting for a breakthrough.
"Milédou was born out of a meeting in 2012 with Amadou Gallo Fall and John Manyo Plange, the former directors of NBA Africa, who have since taken over the management of the Basketball Africa League," Jean-Luc recounts to TRT Afrika.
"I was finishing my studies in France at the time and wanted to contribute to the well-being of Togo youth through basketball. The opportunity to work with the NBA was unexpected, so I jumped at it."
A shot at life
Over a decade later, Jean-Luc Agboyibo's zeal and commitment to mentoring young, underprivileged people in Africa through sport, particularly basketball, remains undiminished.
Whether it's a young person incarcerated for a crime, someone encountering social distress, or a rebellious youth experiencing difficulties at school, Milédou provides opportunities for everyone to make a new beginning.
At the Milédou centre in Kouvé, located in the Maritime Region of Togo, Jean-Luc and members of his association work tirelessly to expand their social outreach, ranging from basketball coaching to educational and social assistance.
"I want to create an environment for the young people of my country where they get the right to play and the opportunities that can arise from it," says Jean-Luc, ranked among "100 young African leaders" by the French-African Foundation in 2021.
Man on a mission
Unlike most young people at his centre, Jean-Luc had a reasonably happy childhood in Paris, with a normal lifestyle and a well-rounded education. He stayed with his sisters while their parents lived and worked in Togo.
After earning a degree in finance and marketing from the University of Paris-I-Panthéon-Sorbonne and then a master's in sports management from AMOS Sport Business School, Jean-Luc went through the grind of gathering insights from professionals on how to translate his dream into a reality.
In 2014, two years after he began the Kouvé Centre, Jean-Luc’s first basketball court was created with an investment of 5 million CFA francs. "On the day of the inauguration, people approached us and asked why we didn't put that money into what they believed were more important things," he recounts.
With unwavering conviction, and thanks to awareness campaigns and tournaments, Milédou has convinced hundreds of young people in Togo and Côte d'Ivoire to buy into Jean-Luc's vision.
In 2017, Jean-Luc received permission to run the Milédou programme in Abidjan's MACA prison. The objective was to provide the incarcerated youth with psychological support and introduce them to a new way of life through sports.
Jean-Luc also finances the schooling of girls from families with uncertain incomes. Many of these girls are those whose education was interrupted by pregnancy, for example.
"For the first few years, we relied on crowdfunding. After the third year, foundations and trusts started to notice," Jean-Luc tells TRT Afrika.
"As our purpose was not just sport, we had the attention of organisations working for education, the inclusion of girls, or social cohesion. From the fifth year onwards, we had a body of work to highlight and raise five-figure sums."
The turning points for Milédou include partnering with the Obama Foundation and then the Basketball Africa League (BAL) in 2019.
Difficult decision
Jean-Luc recalls that when the opportunity to associate with the BAL came along, he wasn't sure if that would benefit Milédou.
"Although I was aware of my organisation's potential and social impact, I had a fundamental question about the business model and the sustainability of our activities," he says. "At the same time, it was a unique opportunity to learn within an organisation attached to the NBA.
Jean-Luc held various positions within the BAL from 2020 until August 2023. In September, he became head of Oméga Sports Holding, an investment company dedicated to African sport.
Milédou has a full-time staff of seven and three consultants working to run a network of 40 educators in 12 Togo and Côte d'Ivoire localities.
If not in basketball, many young people trained through Milédou have succeeded in other fields of human endeavour. Some are now working for technology behemoths such as Microsoft.
Jean-Luc's noble initiative continues to draw inspiration from the philosophy espoused by Nelson Mandela: "Sport has the power to change the world. The power to inspire and unite people like no other."
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