Camilo Leon-Quijano
The Rugbywomen of Sarcelles
In November 2016 I started following a group of rugbywomen from the Chantereine high school in Sarcelles, an impoverished suburb located in the north of Paris. Last year they were one of the best newcomer teams of the country. In 2015 their coach Florian, started a program called 20 Rugbywomen Sarcelloises in which he prepares the team to international competitions. During this project they will travel to the United Kingdom to participate in a high school tournament in London.
The main objective of this program is to use rugby as a way to limit the school dropout and to promote “citizenship values”. For these 20 young women, rugby is an empowering medium to overcome difficulties and gain confidence. It is also a tool to reverse stereotypes and change the image of young women living in French suburbs.
Camilo Leon-Quijano
Camilo is Phd Fellow in Sociology and lecturer at the Gender Studies department of the EHESS (School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences). He is an independent photographer born in Bogotá (Colombia) and based in Paris.
He uses photography as a medium to understand urban spaces. He specializes in gender issues and social inequalities. Camilo explores the multiples ways photography may be an empowering instrument to overturn stereotypes: in that sense he conceives visual materials as a tool to question what constitutes “reality”. He has been working on documentary projects in France, Colombia and Madagascar.