GFP sports for peace club launched
An initiative to help encourage peaceful coexistence among schoolchildren has been launched at St Peters Mission School in Ashaley Botwe near Madina.
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Dubbed: “GFP sports for peace club,” is a programme which seeks to use sports as an entry point to engage with the younger generation through carefully facilitated sport-based games that provide a vehicle for integrated education and behaviour change.
The programme is a brainchild of Generation For Peace (GFP) in collaboration with its local partner organisation, Youngstars Development Initiative.
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At the launch on the school’s premises on Thursday, November 16, in Accra, the Country Director of Youngstars Development Initiative, Mrs Naa Adei Boateng, said organisers of the programme agreed to permanently set up the club in the school to help sustain the progress the team had made in the last four years.
She noted that the club’s vision was being pegged against the backdrop of the successful implementation of two programme cycles; and a request for a scale-up of GFP activity by target audience (TG) and by beneficiary communities (BC) in general.
“The gains from the just-ended cycle and the previous are worth safeguarding. Sustainability has become a watchword in the development industry.
The sustainable development goals (SDGs) as a whole and our individual (private) roles in the wide SDGs’ vision beckons us to act in a manner that does not in any way compromise the impact and outcomes of the programme cycles implemented since GFP inception in Ghana,” she stated.
Functions of the club
The administration of the club would be premised on two folds.
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First, creating an enabling environment to develop and improve club members’ skills in understanding, practising and sharing expressions of change using sport.
It is the observation of the implementing team that through this first approach, members of clubs continue developing values consistent with the GFP brand (and this principle is of very dear interest).
Second, the implementation team intends to make even more practical the club engagement.
Consequently, Mrs Boateng said the club did not only intend to teach skills acquisition, but also, practise skills acquisition by engaging target groups of school clubs in diverse handicraft activities.
“In Ghana, handicrafts are precious items and many of the young population survive on trading same. Through the GFP school club, we intend to empower the members with skills (economic empowerment skills) which would go a long way with them, even after their graduation from the school using empowerment for peace,” he said.
Director’s remarks
The launch was also climaxed with a presentation of an award to the Director of the School, Dr Moses Adu-Gyimah.
Dr Adu-Gyimah called on the citizenry to support the agenda to promote peaceful coexistence among children in schools in the country.
“They are an organisation that is trying to promote peace and they are trying to do that through the grass roots, and I believe they need to be supported,” he said.
He said given that most countries spent huge sums of money to restore peace after confusion or war simply meant that Ghana needed to thrive harder to protect the peace it was presently enjoying.
“Today, this organisation has recognised the little contribution I have made and has brought me something to represent the level of appreciation I have also made towards the peace-building campaign,” he added.