Bakary Meité & Gaël Fickou noble gestures

By Guillaume Mahot

There are different ways to help people. Giving some money, collecting funds for an association, spending some time with the people who need it, staying at home too. In French rugby, two players decided to go further by giving a lot of themselves. Simple facts. To help in those times of difficulties. And for the cynical ones, no communications strategy. Human beings can be kind and selfless sometimes!

Bakary Meité, French rugby player from Ivorian origin who currently plays for US Carcassonne in Pro D2 (second division of French rugby), decided to do some voluntary work for a Parisian hospital. As a cleaner at Sainte-Périne, Meité starts at 7.30 in the morning and does the cleaning in the three buildings of the hospital. Washing switches, banisters, windows, door handles, everything that needs to get cleaned for people to use it. 

No money in return, and a true desire to be considered as everything but a hero, because what he does, as he claims, is done in order to be useful and help each other. What he does, some employees have been doing it for many years in silence.

He is not the only rugby player to make efforts to use his free time in the best possible manner. Gaël Fickou, 26 years old and Centre for Stade Français Paris since 2018, set up something generous as well.

The French international, Senegalese roots by his father, chose the cooking path. With a friend of his who owns a restaurant, the youngster decided to conceive and cook some meals aimed at the medical staff of some Parisian hospitals (Raymond-Poincaré, Ambroise-Paré), a population who is often lacking of time to get some decent food at lunch.

The examples of Bakary Meité and Gaël Fickou are here to show us that humility prevails, no matter the fame and reputation. You get to know people better in times like this.

Africa Global News Publication