INTRODUCTION: The President of Senegal, M. Leopold Senghor, opened a national youth festival of culture and sports on Sunday (March 27). The Youth gathering in Dakar, the capital, is the first of its kind in the country's history.

SYNOPSIS: President Senghor arrived for the festival's opening ceremony with M. Joseph Mathiam, Minister for Youth and Sports, and M. Alioune Sene, Minister of Culture.

More than two thousand participants in the festival are the country's best young artists and sportsmen, representing every region of Senegal.

There are sports competition as well as several concerts, theatre performances, exhibitions of art and seminars in the festival programme, taking place over a two-weeks period.

The Youth festival is a part of the country's independence anniversary celebrations, Senegal, a former French colony, became independent on the fourth of April seventeen years ago.

Earlier in the year President Senghor opened a new university in Dakar. The university has fulfilled one of the major aims of a building programme to improve education facilities in the country. Last month sports ministers from six West African countries - Guinea, Gambia, Mail, Mauritania, Guinea Bissau and Senegal - met in Dakar to discuss their experiences in the development of sports.