PEOPLE: FOCUS ON PLAY SOCCER GHANA
A ROTATING FOCUS ON THE PEOPLE BEHIND
PLAY SOCCER's COUNTRY PROGRAMS
HIGHLIGHTS
GHANA's ex-National Team Player Anthony "Tony" Baffoe, also a FIFA match commissioner for the 2010 World Cup, became PLAY SOCCER Ghana's Goodwill Ambassador, as part of his mission to challenge children and youth to pursue "education and a meaningful life".
FIFA, football's world governing body, chose PLAY SOCCER as an implementing partner for one of the "20 for 2010" Football for Hope Centres being built across Africa before the 2010 World Cup. The FFH Centre, a $250,000 sports facility to be built at PLAY SOCCER Ghana's Cape Coast site on land given by the Mfantsipim School, will have a mini-pitch, health, counselling and educational services for children and youth.
Congratulations to PLAY SOCCER Ghana "graduate" Florence Dadson, who made the National Under-17 Black Maidens Team. Florence was the toast of all Ghanaians at the recent U-17 World Cup held in New Zealand and is an inspiration to our girls and young women!
Kodwo Morgan
"MAKE SURE YOU ARE LIVING WHAT YOU LEARN HERE!"
PLAY SOCCER Ghana's new Program Director Kodwo Morgan tells the children and volunteer instructors at the program he leads, which currently reaches 898 participants at 12 sites across the country. Previously CEO and founder of a media events company, and a teacher at the Ghana Inter national School, 50-year-old Kodwo came to PLAY SOCCER Ghana after organizing his country's first nationwide spelling completion, called the "Zee": "For 25 years I taught children who came from the wealthiest families in Ghana. But for the Spelling Zee, I travelled to all 10 regions of the country and saw children who were so disadvantaged it broke my heart," Kodwo remembers: "It was a life changing experience: "I realized I had been living in a glass house." Working with PLAY SOCCER, Kodwo has definitely left his "glass house" but teaching is still his focus: "PLAY SOCCER's like a big school for me. The only difference is that the children are scattered all over the country and our teachers are youth volunteers we recruit from the communities! When children come to PLAY SOCCER, they are drawn to the game, but our job is to make sure that while they play they're learning something more for their lives – how to be hygienic, to be healthy at home, to resolve their conflicts." As Program Director, Kodwo sees his larger mission as helping PLAY SOCCER Ghana sustain and improve the quality of the core educational program. "One of the challenges for PLAY SOCCER Ghana is that we are spread over different regions, with great distances between our sites. I spend a lot of time travelling to different sites, checking on program quality, making sure we are consistent in delivering the core educational components." One of the hardest parts of working in rural farming communities, Kodwo says, is securing trust and support. "You have to understand how these communities function. Children here are made responsible at a very young age and have important chores. Parents pull their children out of the PLAY SOCCER program, if they haven't done their work. We learned how to schedule weekly sessions to make sure we were not interfering with children's responsibilities to the community." So far, PLAY SOCCER Ghana is winning the battle, Kodwo reports: "Parents come up to me and say things like, ‘Before my son was lazy, but now he wakes up early, he is careful about the water he drinks, he washes his hands.' Some parents wish their children could stay with us forever!"
Ghana Volunteer Instructor Benedict Ofari Sarpong:
"BE EACH OTHER's KEEPER"
Benedict, who comes from Kibi, Eastern Ghana, became PLAY SOCCER's first participant to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest point on the African continent. A 28-year-old PLAY SOCCER site manager in Bunso, Benedict was selected from 72 PLAY SOCCER volunteer instructors from all over the country to make the trip to Tanzania, where he joined nine other African youth sponsored by the Kilimanjaro Initiative, an NGO that uses the climb to raise awareness of youth issues in underprivileged areas of Africa. "For me this was the experience of a lifetime," Benedict says. "This was not about com peting with anyone but yourself. It was about being each other's keeper, helping each other, as a team, to make it to the summit." Benedict faced a host of challenges on the grueling 5-day-climb to the top of Africa's largest freestanding mountain, not least of which was communicating with Tanzanians who spoke only Swahili! : "I realized that I could – and did - adapt and work with very different kinds of people and just move on." Benedict carried the climb's inspiration lessons back to the children he coaches: "I'm trying to teach the kids this: Believe in yourself and only compete with yourself; if you do, no one else can be the judge, no one else can tell you the outcome!"
FOCUS: PLAY SOCCER GHANA
- Established in 2001
- First PLAY SOCCER program in Africa
- 898 children now registered at 12 sites
- Active in four of Ghana's ten regions — Ashanti, Central, Eastern and Greater Accra
WHAT THEY ARE SAYING:
Children of PLAY SOCCER
Ghana share their dreams
