ANEEJ Youth Football Competition Ends in Benin
By Lucky Isibor
A Youth football competition organised by the African Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ) as part of its Brighter Future project tagged "Building Youth Resistance to Crime", ended on Saturday, 25 March at the Edo State School of Health Technology football pitch in Benin City.
The finals between Unity Football Club and Community Football Club, both of Ogummwenyin community in Oredo Local Government Area, saw the two teams displaying football artistry and Unity Football Club emerged the champion by 5-3 vie penalty shoot out as the score line remained 1-1 at the end of full time.
In his remarks, the Deputy Executive Director of the African Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ), Mr. Leo Atakpu pointed out that sports and football in particular is one of the activities that occupy the youths positively and keep them out of the temptation to join organised crimes.
While noting that the youths are full of energy, Atakpu emphasised the need to assist them chanel these energies to useful ventures by building the appropriate mindset in them.
"The objective of this project is to bring young people together and begin to build their resilience to serious organised crimes and we identified football as one sporting activity that young people in this part of the country take interest in participating.
"You don't keep young people idle and we see that this is an opportunity to begin to build them, build their mindset to stay away from serious organised crimes. You can hear them chanting 'no to cultism, no to cybal crime, no to human trafficking' and that is the message we are passing through these activities and it is the same thing we had with them in the indoor communications; some indoor discussions around these, trying to set their mindset to something more positive, talk to them, bring different experts to talk to them.
"If the youths focus their minds on something more positive like sporting activities, football, it will be very helpful instead of how they want to go from Benin to Europe by road or through the water and go and kill themselves in the desert".
While speaking on other areas of youth engagement in the three year project and its sustainability, the ANEEJ Deputy Executive Director noted that they are building synergy with the local communites of Ogumwenyin and Ogwa where the football clubs are domiciled and the security agencies, including the Police, National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), the Police, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Oredo and Ikpoba/Okha Local Government Councils.
"We are also building the skills of some of the youths. The first intervention was about skills development and acquisition. There are those who are into all kinds of skill acquisition of their choice. We ensure they choose the skill themselves like one of the beneficiaries of the skill acquisition training present here".
Also speaking, the Edo State Zonal Commander of NAPTIP, Nduka Nwanene (Esq), appealed to the funders of the project to expand it to enable other communities benefit as youths are everywhere.
According to him, "I want to crave the indulgence of the funders of this project to assist in taking this pilot project to more communities to ensure that crimes are reduced to the barest minimum".
A beneficiary of the skills acquisition component of the project, Terry Okundaye who said he trained as an electrician through the project, noted that he's now working as an electrician working and caring for himself.
High point of the event was the presentation of medals and boots to the champion, the first and second runners-up, while a giant gold trophy was presented to Unity Football Club of Ogumwenyin, the champion in the competition.
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