The official Glentoran Football Academy Site. - Using Football To Bring The Change We All Need

Glentoran Football Academy uses football as a simple but effective tool to engage a large pool of street children on a regular basis who traditionally have little access to sporting activities. We then aim to develop an individual’s ability to be ‘coached’, both on and off the football pitch, with the aim of progressing individuals through a program of non-formal education. This is complemented by a fun and goal orientated reward system for the individual.

Ghanaians are passionate about football because of the success of the Ghana Blacks during and after the 2006 Fifa World Cup in Germany. Star players like Michael Essien of Chelsea- England, Stephen Appiah of Fernabache-Turkey, Sulley Ali Muntari of Udinese-Italy etc are role models of every soccer loving child in Ghana. Glentoran Football Academy uses Football competitions to educate the children about the effects of “being on the streets” , The Dangers and effects of HIV/AIDS and to promote Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women and how their joining the academy program can change their lives and bring out the potentials in them. Glentoran Football Academy uses football as a simple but effective tool to engage a large pool of street children on a regular basis who traditionally have little access to sporting activities. We then aim to develop an individual’s ability to be ‘coached’, both on and off the football pitch, with the aim of progressing individuals through a program of non-formal education. This is complemented by a fun and goal orientated reward system for the individual

Our academy, within our relatively short existence in the region, has helped about 450 street children get off the street through our academy’s periodic soccer competitions. We have also been able to spread the message of the Dangers and effects of HIV/AIDS to the youth and also spread the message of Gender Equality and Women Empowerment across the Sunyani Municipal Assembly and Brong Ahafo Region as a whole during our soccer competitions.
Street children are admitted into the Academy on a space available basis after the games are held. Much as we would have wished to accommodate many, if not all, of the street kids in our Academy, our accommodation factor will not currently permit us to do so. As a result, some of the street children have been reunited with their families through our support by helping the families to understand the sports potentials of their wards through their involvement in our games. Though these children do not stay on our premises, we still consider them part of our Academy as they continue to train with us.

BEST PRACTICE:
The project has developed over a period of two years where inevitable mistakes have been made and learnt from. Based on this knowledge we are now able to deliver a professional service to entire populace of the Academy. The programme is delivered every day at the same time, same place everyday of the week of the year. The project has developed over time based on feedback and requests from players and participants to meet their needs. Strong working partnerships with the Sunyani Municipal Assembly enable us to concentrate on our strengths whilst outsourcing other deliverable areas. Our advanced monitoring and evaluation system will make us very transparent and accountable to our prospective funders ensuring the best possible outcomes.

At the moment we don’t have any funders for our project. Though we do receive kits from Glentoran Football Club, Northern Ireland and Mercy Corps/NikeGo but financial support comes from only one source which is Christopher Antoh Forsythe.

The project is delivered by our full time Technical team and a strong team of dedicated volunteers. We recruit players by working in partnership with organizations that have existing relationships with our target groups, such as homeless hostels, day centers and local authorities.
The children are enrolled in schools to continue their education along side the football training and also some of them who are not academically good learnt trade to become masons, plumbers, carpenters etc.
We have training for all the children from Monday to Friday early morning before they attend classes and also compulsory evening training where those children who doesn’t live on the Academy premises joins their colleagues.
The Academy is involved in the Regional Youth League and play matches during the weekends. We have three brakes within the year at the Academy that is Easter Break, Summer Break and Christmas Break. This allows the children to meet their families.
Our dedicated Technical Team is responsible for the evaluation of the childrens at the end of every month.

We have received more enquiries from children all over Ghana and beyond including Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Cameroon, and Senegal to join our academy. We have acquired 12 to 15 acres of land provided by the Chiefs and people of Tanoso for our expansion project to construct a Club house to accommodate the lads, build two pitches one natural and one synthetic We also intend to, acquire a Bus/Coach for both away and home matches, and also used computers to establish I.T Centre for the lads, build a modern gym for fitness training as side that we intend to construct classrooms for the lads education as at the moment the few lads we can accommodate are attending classes far away which affects their training.
Due to the great interest shown by people we are looking for potential partners and funders for our projects as the meager budget coming from Christopher Antoh Forsythe is not enough to even provide the necessities needed at the Academy.

A vision, passionate skilled staff and the true buy in of stakeholders in the project are essential to make a project work. Unless there is belief and commitment regardless of the many hurdles you face a project is unlikely to survive. For our client group continuity and stability really matters and the understanding that regardless of the opportunities that you offer, you cannot force people to take them up. People have to realize opportunities for themselves. And also establishing structures in a middle and long term is very hard in social networks due to personal and financial resources and due to a lack of understanding development working.