Background

• Ghana has an estimated population of 20 million with about 75 tribal lines. The Northern Region is relatively deprived and recorded 17 out of the 23 conflicts that occurred in Northern Ghana between 1980 and 2002.
• Female enrolment is increasing nationwide, but unfortunately less than 60% actually complete primary school.
• In rural areas and disadvantaged regions of the country, up to 90% of the population subsists below the poverty line.
• Health priorities are geared towards reducing child mortality, improving maternal mortality and combating HIV/AIDS, and malaria. Ghana’s HIV/AIDS prevalence rate is 2.7%; relatively low as compared to 7.5% in sub-Saharan Africa and 1.1% globally. However, of young people aged 15-24, the estimated number of young women living with HIV/AIDS was more than twice that of young men.

What We Do

The Government of Ghana has recognized the role that Sport for Development can play within the education sector and has cooperated with Right To Play to develop a Regional, multi-year programme called ‘Basic Education through Sport and Play for Children in West and Francophone Africa: Play to Learn’. This aligns regional national priorities with a commitment to basic education as enshrined by the Dakar Framework, the Millennium Development Goals, and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The results are policies that emphasize universal basic education, gender equality, enhanced life skills training, and HIV and AIDS preventative education. Sport and play are the innovative and incorporative vehicles for delivering these imperative improvements.

So Far

In Ghana, 668 trained coaches have reached 26902 children. Encouragingly, over half of the coaches are women and half the children too.