Sport as a Local Development Factor

Dear guest and participants from so many countries of the world

Dear friends

IT is an honour for me to be here today to speak at this important forum of the international press seminar, Play the game.

Sports is fascinating but not innocent. As a mirror of societal oppositions, sport is full of tensions. Tension between innovation and restoration. One of the most relevant features of sports is that, it is an essential part of popular culture, movement for self and community development. Sports develop community, which is closely linked to the cultural taste of the people.

Sports is not only one. In its diversity, there lie fundamentally different approaches towards health and the good story of understanding among people which produces Peace aimed at effective development.

Sports is a perfect tool for mobilising people for a common responsibility.

We have learnt that any solutions to society sport problems requires much more through mobilisation than piece meal reform measures of participation in sports by excellent sportsmen and women. It demands nothing less than a fundamental change in our approach to sports. The provision of sports for all concept for a society. In the northern part of Ghana lives two tribes the Dagombas and the Konkonbas. A misunderstanding at a local market place developed into a tension between these two giant tribes of the north.

The tensions could not be controlled and tribal war erupted. Hundreds of people lost their lives, thousands were rendered homeless and more escaped to the south from brutal killings. Houses were burnt, food and animals destroyed.

For more than a year, there was no commercial activity between these two tribes. People could not cross neighbouring borders for medical treatment, business and sporting activities. School-going children could not go to school. All these led to insecurity in the area. Interventions from politicians could not immediately bring peace to the people.

Suddenly a sports and cultural group came up with an idea of bringing the youths of the two factions to one common battleground. The football field.

Initially neither was ready to visit the den of the foe. Eventually the Dagombas accepted to visit the Konkonbas. The youths of the Konkonbas agreed to mount a high security for the visitors without the intervention of the police and military.

The game ended successful with one goal apiece. No winner no vanquished. Two weeks after, the Dagombas accepted to host the Konkonbas with the same security measures. As a referee seen on these two occasions as a judge, I ensured another goalless drawn game. It was an interesting thing to see the Konkonba youths singing happily home and into the warn hands of their battle ready elderly people at the border demarcating the two tribes.

The Konkonbas, who were armed with spears, guns, bow and arrow and clubs wente back home as losers and promise to win another football match to prove how powerful they are. The Dangombas also resolved to play a third match to win to prove which was the better side.

A workshop after the football match brought match brought the youths together to appreciate peace. A common football field was planned for at the boundary between the two tribes. The field has been created but the third match has never taken place. The two tribes smoked the piece pipe at a football field long before the politicians could say you need peace.

On that occasion the players were not the best, but a game everybody. There was no rigid football rules, but they were allowed to drum and dance their tribal dance.

From this true story, sports helped to bring peace and has helped to placate the two warring factions who have rebuilt their burnt and broken homes. Sports is a mobilisation element towards edevelopment. Youths are called up for a Sports for All programme where there is no test for qualification. They are trained by volunteers to acquire skills in their chosen field; they then go through leadership education to be innovators, creators and administrators of local base development projects.

In my small village in Ghana, participants from sports activity regular undertake to do communal labour to keep the environment clean, plant trees to check desertification, clear natural water sources and distil gutters to prevent spread of mosquitoes in preventing malaria.

One football on the field of play in Ghana brings hundreds of hungry sports lovers together to play and to decide how their community should be developed.

Sporting activity in Africa is primarily integrated with culture. There is always the cultural drumming and dancing during football matches as a means of supporting and cheering on the participants. The power of culture paves the way for creativity and showing of individual skills and experience that can be neither measured nor weighed during sporting activity.

In Ghana, the cultural Agoro dance adds flare and beauty to the popular sports and adds imagination to a laboratory of young sports enthusiast or the not-yet-experienced.

The infusion of sports and culture helps us transgress limits, self-imposed or otherwise; to challenge ourselves and to discover the talents we were unaware of-talents that are valuable in every kind of situation in a local community. Without these valuable talents, we are prisoners of the structures and thoughts of others.

Thus sports is used in my local area to clarify medical, political, educational or family problems, which is termed as the culture for development. It also helps to analyse the consequences of development in relation to the need of the people in a local community.

Sports and culture and development cannot be viewed as separate entities. It is the soil that provides a local societys nourishment and the basis on which it defines its value system, traditions and behaviours. It governs societys conception of its own future and selects the means of getting there. That explains why sports and cultural activities in Ghana is seen as centre point of development. The decline in sports activities is seen more than the economic decline of our local communities. There is the popular belief among the people of my local area to hold fast to dreams die, then life is like a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.

Let me take you deep into Ghana, where the infusion of physical sports and culture knows no bounds. We will talk about the yearly festivals. We see a hunter walking proudly around the Town Square and the festival arena, surrounded by thousands of joyful spectators. He bears an antelope on his shoulders, the prize of his victory; he laughs and waves to the enthusiastic crowd. He has just won the hunting match in the animal catching-the Aboakyir festival of the people of central region of Ghana.

The triumph of the hunter is a central event in the Animal hunting festivity. The ancient cultural event had been suppressed in recent times as being reactionary, unchristian and outmoded. But the people find joy and happiness in these festival. It reminds them of the old and a new nation striving for self-development.

At the same time, the festival displays ties between different peoples. In the Aboakyir festival, not only the Fantis are showing their customs, dances, musical performances and athletic power, but also other people and minorities living in the region.

This Ghanaian festival includes besides the running competition in catching the animal, dancing, annual general meetings between chiefs and elders and the local people in a ground durbar, where developmental plans for the community is made known to all. Many other people have humorous character, provoking laughter and enjoyment. The running to catch the animal first is not only measured by the success for the individual, but also the failure the stumbling and the comic that adds joy to the event.

The top most attraction is always the fund-raising in aid of developments. The winner uses his prize to mobilise people and gear their attention to developments. There is always the display of the joyful spirit in these events, which eventually leads to local development. The combination of athletism and cultural belief is a common tool for local development.

In all these events, the sporting activities used to bring peace, love and understanding with the ultimate goal is a tool for development. There is no special selection mechanism. Everybody is allowed to participate. What will happen if it is decided that people should pass a test before taking part?

Will it be the same spirit of friendship or will it be a forum to challenge with adequate preparation to win at all cost.

Will the people accept the call to help voluntarily to develop their communities or will they wait for the champion to use his prize money to develop the community?

Sports for All as a motivation and mobilisation factor for development should be encouraged and supported for a better future. I call on all participants here to use every means to encourage sports participation. Let us contribute in our own small way to bring peace, where it is needed. Through peaceful atmosphere our world will be a more interesting place.

What can we do now? We want to take sports into account in African policies to help build African communities, which is closer to the people. We need a continental action on Sports for All to enable everybody to have the opportunity to take part. Help us to redefine the conditions for a new African attitude to sports for the benefit of our people.

First, I would like to make it clear that, we (those) in the Sports for All arena are not trying to establish a sports policy in which there is a common link to trade and business policies. Instead, we want to adapt, use community instruments to promote sports.

The first requirement is to seek a working partnership with the media regarding sports in Africa.

I therefore on behalf of my people ask my brothers and sisters from Africa to go back and support the great work to use sports to forester unity, peace and development for our people.

Use this forum to interact and establish contacts with other media practitioners to use their powerful tool to call on governments and NGOs to support sports on the continent.