NTTF Gets Equipment Support From France

The Nigeria Table Tennis Federation (NTTF) has received some equipment from a Paris-based Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), Ping Sans Frontieres.
The equipment made up of used rubbers for beginners was received by the Secretary General of NTTF, Chinedu Ezeala-Ogundare at the ongoing ITTF World Junior Championships in Cape Town, South Africa.
According to the representative of Ping Sans Frontieres, Claire Smagghe, this gesture is a follow-up to the visit to Nigeria by the founder of the NGO, Sarah Hanffou in May.
“It is always a pleasure to meet our partners during these major table tennis events. This new meeting gave us the opportunity to move on and further develop our common projects. It allows us to give them a new equipment donation. As the Nigerian Table Tennis Federation is developing a new programme in order to promote Para table tennis, we will also support them with wheelchairs donation very soon,”Smagghe said.
For the NTTF Scribe, the federation would continue to partner bodies that would help in growing the sport in Nigeria while lauding the organisation for considering Nigeria as beneficiary of the organisation gesture to countries in Africa. “We are delighted to partner Ping Sans Frontieres, a foundation set up by former African champion, Sarah Hanffou in her efforts to popularise table tennis and grow the sport in the continent. We will make use of this equipment and we hope our players will make use of these equipment to improve themselves and we will continue to provide enabling environment for them to thrive in the sport,” she said.
Ping Sans Frontieres was founded by former African women champion, Sarah Hanffou, when she participated in the Francophone games in 2005 in Niger with the French national table tennis team. During this competition, Sarah had the opportunity to visit Niamey’s club thanks to top athlete Jean Galfione’s association “Athlète du monde”.
On her visit, she was a table outside, a broken net, only one table tennis ball, children playing on the side of the road very close to the traffic… Then it struck her : the very poor conditions in which table tennis is practiced but people are so passionate about this sport all over Africa. Convinced that table tennis has a social and educative role and after meeting with local players, Sarah HAFFOU wanted to develop and promote table tennis on the African continent and in October 2006, the association “PING SANS FRONTIERES” was created.