Dakar’s Catholic archdiocese launches a website for the Youth Olympic Games ⛪ 🇸🇳

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With the Youth Olympic Games (YOG) Dakar 2026 set to run from October 31 to November 13, the Archdiocese of Dakar is turning to digital tools to help Catholics take part in the religious activities planned around the event.The archdiocese has put a web portal online, olympics26-eglisedakar.org, where parishioners and church groups can find the information they need and follow the Games in a spiritual setting. The idea is that visitors no longer have to hunt for information across several places.

A portal to centralize religious information 📲⛪

The site brings together the main details of the church’s spiritual support for Dakar 2026: Mass schedules, a novena (a prayer repeated over nine days), several prayer texts and an athlete’s prayer. That prayer is available in five languages (French, English, Spanish, German and Italian) to reach a wider audience.

The prayers are placed under the patronage of Our Lady of Africa and are meant to accompany young people, athletes and the whole Senegalese nation throughout the competition.

The portal also lists pilgrimage sites that could be offered to delegations visiting Dakar. The diocesan committee is asking parish priests, chaplains and school heads to read and share this information to help organize group trips.

Celebrations around the Games 🏟️🙏

Beyond the online resources, the archdiocese has planned several religious events alongside the Games. The opening Mass will be led by Archbishop André Guèye of Dakar on Friday, October 30, at 11 a.m., at Notre-Dame des Victoires (Our Lady of Victories) Cathedral.

It takes place the day before the official opening ceremony of the Games, scheduled for Saturday, October 31, at 6 p.m., at Abdoulaye Wade Stadium.

In practice, the portal becomes a single entry point for practical information and spiritual resources tied to the event. By gathering them in one place, the archdiocese aims to make them easier to find and share among the Catholic communities mobilized for Dakar 2026. How those communities use the tool over two weeks of competition remains to be seen.

What do you make of this initiative? Let us know in the comments ☺️