Elodie Cuau, 26yo
Green Village Raipur, India
This story is about 6 teams of Catalysts in all South Asia. 24 catalysts, crazy enough to embark on a journey of the same number of hours ; this meant-to-be event, was birthed first in Nepal, where two catalysts, Jeanne Allard and Pauline Delaporte, got itchy to get some action done while being - as the rest of the world - locked inside.
Indeed, this long period of lockdown made us all creative to jump outside our daily routine on computers. Used to the day-to-day field work of a Coach, both frustration to see the Youth getting impacted by the Covid- 19 crisis, and willingness to get involved in a more concrete way grew deeper and deeper. We were using all the brain juice in the world to get help to them and keep them busy; boredom was clearly not in the picture. But the will to get physical remained. Add a kick of restlessness for the sport-lovers, numerous, in the LP4Y family, and booom ! There you have it : the perfect cocktail for bold ideas.
Then, what to do ? How to be an actor of change in those messed-up, tangled times, yet to unravel ?
That’s how we, catalysts, decided to get involved and organized inter-countries sportive challenges to crowdfund for the Youth we coach and follow every day. For a better future despite the dooming crisis, but also to motivate ourselves to do some blood-pumping, body-moving, insane-sweating-by-40-degrees action ! Filled by this will to get UP, to raise UP our help to the Youth, was born the #UPinlockDOWN challenge.
First to get into the swing of things the 1st May at 6am, Taina Schwartz, Laetitia Hra and Clémence Laulan, with the help of Salomé, worked out during 24 hours non stop, between yoga poses, dance choregraphies, squats, badminton in the LPC Sangam Vihar in Delhi .
On Saturday, May 2nd, at 3:00am, not even the rooster got a chance to bother the determined volunteers that organized their staircase ascension, up and down, up and down, repeat, repeat, repeat. For the Youth, for themselves. While watching the landscape view cleared from the pollution in Shantinagar, Kathmandu, Nepal, Pauline Delaporte and Jeanne Allard, could while climbing the last meters of their rusted ladder, see the Himalayas, a few kilometers from their flat. Still in Kathmandu, in the LPC Sinamangal, Clémence Guibert, Mathilde Grancher and Valentine Levy were carrying on, row after row, a warrior insanity parkour, that left a few incapacitated for 24 hours after that much muscle toning ! In Cagayan de Oro in the Philippines and in the Green Village of Raipur in In and Elodia, a few hours later, Eva Franchomme, Oona Wouters, Théo Morice and Sixtine Benault, as well as Manon and Elodie Cuau, Thomas Lepoutre, Gaëlle Boz, Albane Pournin and Pauline Davieau, kicked off their own marathons : a relay in their 100 meter length walkway for the firsts, and a 210 tours of parkour, for the number of Youth they had welcomed in training since the start, for the seconds. Last but not least, the LPC Malwani in Mumbai, India and the LPC Cilincing in Jakarta, Indonesia linked up from welcoming sunrise to farewell to the moon - a mental bond of 24 hours of meditation - with the participation of Gaëlle Muraca for India, Amelia Micelyn, Fanette Billot, John Delaporte and Romain Mailliu for Indonesia.
Feeling united in this challenge, Gaelle Boz, after running 15 kms, shared some thoughts : “If it weren’t for them, I would not have finished. Because of the lockdown, I could not run like I was used to ; my left knee - fragile after years of squash rough sessions - started to hurt badly just after I hit km 5. Soon enough, I felt blisters on both feet, soreness in my thighs and bum. The 3 last kilometers were the worst, it was only 7:45am, but the temperature was already 37°C and I had been running on since 5:30am.. But I kept going. How could I think of my pain when I knew that the Youth were struggling to get the bare necessities to survive? If I was not finishing, I was failing them. Simple as that“.
And fail them, she, we, YOU did not. As the result of the incredible support the team benefitted on social media, and financially, LP4Y has collected in return the compelling amount of 8 493€. To help Youth who were fired. To feed families. To ensure access to clean water. To pay medicine bills. To live.
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