Coach the Coaches Course: Tackling child labour, Inclusivity, and sporting activities in New Longoro

According to the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) report, in 2015, of all children in Ghana aged five 5 to 17 years, about 21 per cent are involved in child labour and 14 per cent are engaged in hazardous forms of labour. This is twice as common in rural areas.

Besides the issues of child labour in these communities, the people have little to no sporting activities going on, thereby leaving natives of the community with no choice but to create their joy through other means.

As a means to address this issue, Fafali Organization held the second edition of the Coach the Coaches Course in the Bono East community of New Longoro. The Organization believes training football coaches in the community will go a long way to reduce the issue of child labour in the community and at the same time create activities for the indigenes.

The course began on August 15-19, 2022, at the New Longoro Community Senior High School where 44 young, passionate, and exuberant indigenes registered to participate in the course.

New Longoro is a community in the Bono East region under the Kintampo North Municipal Assembly. They have a community day school for Senior High School students in and around the community.

The community leaders reached out to the Fafali Organization to bring the Coach the Coaches Course to the Bono East region after hearing of its success in other parts of Ghana.

Before the course took place in New Longoro, the course had taken place in the Volta and Central regions between August 1-12, 2022, where over 2,000 individuals were impacted through the training and the soccer clinics organized.

In an interview, the CEO of the Fafali Organization, Senyo Sosu, explained why the Fafali Organization went the extra mile to engage a community like the New Longoro community.

“We moved the course to the Bono East region basically because of issues of child labour. We realized that child labour in New Longoro was on the rise and as such, something had to be done to curb the menace” Mr. Sosu said. He added that “the course’s approach to solving such problems is to impact the natives who will serve as ambassadors to effect changes on our behalf.”

Senyo Morgan and Coach Baringse, participants of the course also expressed their thought on the course and how impactful they believe the knowledge gained will be to the community.

“Generally, the course took off at an intermediary-Advance level taking participants through a stage of intellectually stimulating Process of innovative thinking,” Morgan said. He also alluded that, “the course brought cohesion and sense of bonding to New Longoro” and also “the course solved the apathy among parents towards football. The course now ensures they encourage their kids to be involved in football.”

Coach Baringse capped it off by saying the course has afforded the coaches more knowledge, where they can gather these young children, most especially the girl child, and help their parents understand the economic impact of venturing into football to cut down on issues of child labour in New Longoro.

Not only was there a coaching course in the community, but there were also enterprising soccer clinics that run concurrently with the Coach the Coaches Course.

These soccer clinics are the ways Fafali uses to create activities in any community that lacks any form of sporting activities. Communities that were impacted by the soccer clinics were; Longoro, Jugboi, and Bamboi in the Bono East, Savannah, and the Northern regions.

About 200 children in total were taken through the fun drills of the soccer clinics. Children who had never had any contact with the game of football as well as children who wanted to make a career out of football were heavily impacted by the team of Fafali’s able coaches. Children received jerseys, boots, soccer balls, and medals which were all sponsored by Fafali’s official kit sponsors, KitAid.

The Fulani Encounter

On August 17-18, 2022, the Fafali Organization team paid a courtesy call to the Fulani community in New Longoro.

The Fulani also known as Peul or Fulbe are a tribe scattered throughout many parts of Africa, mostly in West Africa from Lake Chad in the east to the Atlantic coast. The Fulani are found in almost all parts of Ghana where some are businessmen as well as engaged in many aspects of Ghanaian society.

The Fulani are regularly 'victims' of ethnically-based stereotypes, prejudices, and discrimination within Ghanaian societies. The Fulani are mainly nomadic and semi-sedentary pastoralists whose occupation is herding cattle.

This encounter with the Fulani community proved to be a monumental feat for the Fafali Organization, as it is widely known that, this is the most enclosed community in all of the New Longoro area. They neither go to others nor do others come to them. For them to accept the Fafali Organization among them, was nothing short of an achievement.

The Fulani community through this encounter laid before the Fafali Organization, their request and what they can do to support the organization as well.

Paramount among their requests was the request for a school of their own. The Fulani believe that too much contact with other cultures is making them lose their culture, so to prevent that, no child in the Fulani community is allowed to attend the schools in and around the New Longoro community.

They believe their children are missing out on education, hence, the request for a school of their own where they can educate their children and at the same time imbibe in them, their culture.

SSG Raymond Senyo Amezado, Founder of the Fafali Organization explained how much help the Fulani Community is willing to offer to get a school of their own.

“They offered to do whatever it takes to assist the Fafali Organization to realize this vision of the Fulani community. They promised to make lands available for the construction of this school as well as provide a conducive environment for teachers who are tasked to teach their children in this school” Raymond said.

About how the Organization intends to help the Fulani community accomplish these goals, SSG Raymond Amezado said “We (Fafali) will continue to offer our assistance through the soccer clinics for the children and education for the women as they are the most vulnerable in this community but we will be engaging the people in government and our partners to fast track the process of getting this community (Fulani) their heart desires”.