This Land Is Their Land
Sports columnist Ed Willes blogs about a variety of subjects, some sports-related, some not.
ACCRA – Hate to sound like Ghana’s worst name-dropper but as the Right To Play contingent sat in the office of the minister of education, it became obvious why the program works here and why it will continue to work as long as these good people stay involved.
Actually, that lesson was absorbed earlier today at two stops in and around Accra where four of Canada’s finest winter athletes – - speedskater Clara Hughes, skiier Emily Brydon, aerialist Steve Omischl and skeleton’s Mellisa Hollingsworth – took part in an elaborate play date with a couple of hundred Ghanian school children who were more precious than gold. But it was seeing the commitment from the highest level of government which reinforced Right To Play’s master plan; a plan which starts at the top and flows down to a most remarkable group of volunteer leaders and through to the very heart of these kids. Right To Play is built on high-minded ideals which sound noble in theory but, three years ago, weren’t always successful. Now it works because its run by Ghanians for Ghanians and while the Kodak moments they provide are nice enough, the real comfort here is knowing it will be sustained long after we’re gone.
“We know the values of the people, their language, their history, their culture,” said Tanko Azzika one of a core group of professionals which now forms the soul of Right To Play in Ghana. “It’s not like the volunteers did a bad job but they lacked the knowledge of this land.”
That, apparently, is no longer a problem and it’s taken all of two years to turn things around. The Canucks should work so efficiently.
The big change here started in ‘06 but given the history of the parent organization, it should come as no surprise that the Ghana operation took some time to find itself. Right To Play started off in the early ‘90s as Olympic Aid, a fund-raising group which enjoyed some spectacular successes under the direction of Norwegian speedskating legend Johan-Olav Koss. But, about 10 years in, Koss grew weary of cutting cheques for one-off projects and wanted to build something more permanent and substantial. With that in mind, he formed Right To Play in the early part of this decade and while the group’s reach might have exceeded its grasp during its startup, they’ve since made up for lost time.
In Ghana, for example, the program was basically administered by outside volunteers who would work for a year before they were replaced by newbies. Anyone who follows the New York Islanders knows you can’t have success that way and a couple of years ago Right To Play, with the help of some seed money from the Canadian International Development Association, set out on a different course. They hired Azzika and Joyce Ashun as their first two fulltime employees. They then moved into a downtown office with a plan. That office now consists of 15 employees and today, Ashun ran through a power-point presentation outlining the Ghanian operation which was as slick and informative as anything you’d see on Bay Street.
Ghana’s challenges, by Africa’s standards at least, aren’t insurmountable but when the country boasts that 35 per cent of its citizens now live below the poverty line – it is, after all, down seven per cent from the year before – you begin to understand their issues are more complex than those faced in, say, North Vancouver. Still, one of the first initiatives undertaken by the Ghana office was the simple but ingenious scheme to engage the country’s educational system. From there, things fell into place like the tumblers on a combination lock.
For starters, going through the schools gave Right To Play immediate access to the physical resources it needed. It also connected them to a pool of teachers who embraced RTP’s vision and a captive audience in the kids. Some 30,000 Ghanian children are now enrolled in Right To Play programs and almost 700 volunteer volunteer leaders have been trained to lead them.
Today, we also saw those things come together at a sprawling, 4,000-student primary school in the city and a tiny rural school of a couple of hundred. And the results were magic.
It starts with the adult leaders, a group who’ve invested unconditionally in the process and whose enthusiasm is contagious.
Then again, the kids are revelation in their own right. Maybe they were on their best behaviour because they had company – and you haven’t lived until you’ve seen six-feet tall, very blonde, very fit Emily Brydon dancing with a group of vertically challenged Ghanian six-year olds – but you can’t fake that level of involvement and these students were nothing if not into it.
“I didn’t see one kid who wasn’t interested,” said Brydon.
Again, you wonder how they persevere some times. The second school we visited, located in the lush, rolling hills just outside of the city, looked like a fine and sturdy building until you noticed it had no roof. Seems it was blown off in a windstorm about a year ago. As a result, the kids take their lessons in open-air classrooms with thatched roofs and, in the event of rain, they’re sent home.
A group of young African journalists also followed us around yesterday and one of them, Emmanuel Gyamfi, approached your agent in the field and struck up a conversation. After the initial niceties, Gyamfi grew as serious as an angina attack as he started railing about the local government which had abandoned these kids and the message that sent to the students and the teachers.
“It’s not OK,” he kept saying over and over again and the powers that be should pay attention because Gyamfi might be running their country one day.
But the rest of the day was definitely OK. The kids at the rural school played an elaborate game of tag which started with one of the leaders calling out, “Mangle.” The kids then shuffled around while sing-songing “mangle, mangle” in a distinctly African rhythm. It was only after some deliberation that we understood “mangle” was actually, “mingle” and that’s what the kids were doing, mingling.
Later, back in the halls of power, the honourable O.B. Amoah, Ghana’s deputy minister of education, science and sport, restated his government’s endorsement of Right To Play and its core principles while Azziki, Ashun and some of their colleagues looked on.
It didn’t seem to dawn on him he was preaching to the choir but the real excitement in Ghana will come in the next decade when these kids, who’ve grown up with Right To Play, become volunteer-leaders and work with the next generation.
“There was no institutional memory,” said Ashun. “Before, when people left, they took what we do with them.”
Now it’s staying right where it belongs and these people will remember.
