Ray Opoku donates equipment to support juvenile boxing
Ray Opoku, a former Ghanaian amateur and professional boxer in the 1970s and early 80s, has fulfilled a promise to provide headgear to support juvenile boxing in Ghana after watching a Facebook post of juveniles fighting without it back in July this year.
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A number of kid boxers engaged in exhibition fights at this year’s ‘Salafest’ boxing show, which took place at Opera Square in Accra on July 9, videos of which were posted on Facebook.
Opoku, who is now based in Germany where he trains aspiring boxers and others for self-defence, was one of those who watched the video online. He immediately commented that it was wrong for the juveniles to fight without headgear on the said video.
Mr. Opoku later requested for the two boys he saw in the video to be identified for him to bring them headgear in Ghana for Christmas holidays in December.
He’s fulfilled that promise when he took time off last Wednesday to present four pairs of gloves and four pieces of headgear to the young boxers and organiser of the ‘Salafest’ Fatai Issifu at the Addy Boxing Academy, near Bukom.
“It’s not allowed for kids their age to fight without headgear because it’s very dangerous to their health, a serious blow to the head can cause severe injury for life. This is the little I have to help now, to give back to my people and hope to do more in future,” Opoku said.
“We thank Mr. Ray so much for this donation, we appreciate it very much because this is the first time somebody has seen only a video of us fighting and decided to come and help with what we don’t have. We thank you again and promise to make good use of the equipment,” said Fatai Issifu, popularly called Coach Pakistan.
The Communications Director of the Ghana Boxing Authority (GBA), Naa Darkuah Dodoo, expressed gratitude to Ray Opoku for the kind gesture on behalf of the GBA and urged others to emulate him.
“This is a huge surprise and we can’t stop thanking uncle Ray for this support. As Coach Fatai said, it’s never happened before but it also shows the progress that we can make if our former boxers and coaches who are now successful can contribute like this in their own little ways,” Naa Darkuah said.