A humanitarian and social development advocate, Ambassador Chris Ibeh has revealed how massive help from an international agency in Japan has helped him put in place a vibrant youth football project in the Surulere area of Lagos.
Ambassador Ibeh revealed in an exclusive interview with Sports247 that, with support from Taiyo Foundation of Japan, he has been able to take many youths off the streets and give them hope for the future, which he is doing with a community centred project known as AYICRIP-NELIS Football Academy.
However, while talking to Sports247 by virtue of his position as the three-year-old project’s CEO, Ibeh confessed that it has not been an easy task and, though he stressed that Taiyo Foundation is still unflinching in its support, he wants Nigerians to also be involved in the venture, whose full name is African Youth Initiative On Crime Prevention and Next Leaders Initiative Sustainability.
Ibeh began rhetorically, “Do we have challenges? The answer is yes. Because the boys come from very poor backgrounds, we need a whole lot of resources to take care of them. Some of them trek very far distances to be at training.
Many of them don’t have regular training because of the distance from which they come. So, we are looking for an accommodation, where we can have our camp and keep them. Give them good food, and teach them to get different skills that would sustain them before they make it in football.”
He admitted that many of the youngsters currently in the academy will not become successful football stars, hence his disclosure that vocational training and skill acquisition have become integral parts of the project.
Ibeh added, “Definitely, not all of them will become professional footballers. So, for those who may not make it, they will fall back to different skills for sustenance and to aid themselves in life. They should be able to get something to feed themselves and raise families, not to become a nuisance to the community.”
He concluded by affirming areas of partnership that the project has been able to evolve with, and then urged Nigerians from all walks of life to urgently rally round in support of what he labelled as a very lofty venture that aims to clean the community of all anti-social youths.
“We work with the Lagos State Football Association. We are affiliated with them and also affiliated to the NFF by extension. Taiyo Foundation are our partners in Japan. They’ve been supporting us effectively, and the jerseys we are using were all brought from Japan. So, we are now soliciting for Nigerians to be part of this project.
We love the Japanese. They have been very, very supportive. We send our gratitude from NELIS to Taiyo Foundation and other supporters in Japan. We’ve been to Japan on several occasions and we are also going there in May of this year to present this project to them physically in the community,” Ibeh delightfully disclosed
