The Ghana Football Association, through the GFA Foundation, has presented football equipment and logistics to the Akuse Local Prison in the Eastern Region. The Director of the GFA Foundation led a delegation from the GFA to present the items.
The presentation of the items is part of the GFA Foundation-Ghana Prisons Project, which seeks to use the power of football to promote the wellbeing, reformation, rehabilitation and reintegration of inmates of Ghana’s prisons into society.
The Akuse Local Prison is the fourth recipient of jerseys, footballs, goalkeepers’ gloves and sets of football hose under this project. The other items presented to the Prison were whistles, caution cards (yellow & red cards) and movable goalposts.
In a short interactive session with inmates and officers, the Director of the GFA Foundation, Malcolm Frazier Appeadu touched on the three (3) pillars of the project. “The first pillar is the football items and logistics, the two other equally important pillars are coaching, refereeing and mentorship training programmes for inmates and officers as well as advocacy workshops to sensitize the public and the citizenry on the negative impact of discrimination and stigmatization of prisons and prisoners”. He admonished the inmates not to be repeat offenders stressing that they change their attitude so they do not come back to prison.
Acknowledging the gesture, Assistant Director of Prisons and Officer-in-Charge, Alhaji Ousmane Tasembedo (Esq.) expressed their heartfelt appreciation on behalf of the Director- General of the Ghana Prisons Service to the entire membership of the Football Association.
“Your generosity serves as a shining example of compassion and community spirit, and we are honoured to have such a dedicated partner in our mission to promote positive change and rehabilitation of inmates under our care”, he added.
The inmates had an aerobics session and also asked questions about the project after which their block leader expressed their gratitude to the Ghana Football Association.
Present at the short but colourful ceremony were Second-in-Command, Issifu Abdula, DSP. Emmanuel Conney, Officer-in-Charge of Sports, ASP. Deynu Gilbert, Second-in-Charge of Sports and ASP Naomi Fainusatu Abdulai, Head of Football Teams.
Accompanying the Director of the GFA Foundation were Mr. Kwame Koramoah, Stephen Saforo and Solomon Poakwa from the GFA Head Office.
GFA Communications
