Gigathlon is a big endurance sport event happen in Switzerlandonce in a year. It is the only endurance event in the world which combines 5 disciplines. The event is organized by Swiss Olympic. Since 2006 Sport – The Bridge held the replica of Gigathlon in Ethiopiawith support of Swiss Olympic. Gigathlon Ethiopia is participating street children and school children with the indigenous children games with objective of give equal chance for all children from different back ground to play and to learn.
In 2012 Gigathlon Ethiopia was held for one week from 24 – 30 Dec 2012. In addition to sport event this year program included more activities which gave special opportunities for children and parents to learn. Main activities of the one week events were poems competition, panel discussion and on the last day the event concluded with exciting sport programs. The poems competition among children was held on the topic of Education, Health and Sport. This program organized in Dilbetgile primary school and 150 children participated from STB and four schools. On other day there was a panel discussion which organized on the topic of parenthood and on the benefit of play for children holistic development. For the panel discussion invited parents, teachers and social works from school and childcare institutes.
On the last day of the event’s week, amazing sport event was held at Minilik the II Primary School sport fields, which participated 400 participants. The participants were street children and children invited from different schools. The sport event was a combination of four traditional distance games as we did every year. Each child has a chance to perform each game one after the other and to complete the disciplines they expected to cover 800m. The games were organized in a kind of competition. At the end individual and group winner were given recognition. Neverthless the event more gives value for group winners. The participant children were grouped with a member of four children. Each member result was collected and at the end the best groups were awarded small gifts. The idea of the group formation was to teach and practice team work and cooperation as the one of the objective of the event. Beside to the game different educational and fun activities were done through music, drama, group song by street children and messages were transfer on the education and health issues.
The children had a fun and new experiences. This year Gigathlon was implemented in especial and more significantly combining educational values. Sport – The Bridge would like to compliment for two schools which give us their space for the event and for stake holders who supporting this educational and sport event to be realized.