Executive Director of the Center for Sports Leadership at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), Carrie LeCrom, has talked up the importance sports, particularly football, can play in peace building efforts in communities.
She said this in an interview on the last of a three day program put together by students and lecturers of VCU and the US Embassy in Ghana for players of Faith Ladies Football Club and Taking Over Football Club.
The program was run at the Dansoman Astro Turf in Accra and aimed at empowering young athletes to impact communities as leaders by engaging in activities such as tree planting exercises and helping the aged in society in exercising.
“We are working really closely with the players out here with both clubs to think about all the many ways we can use football for peace building efforts.
We have seen in lots of communities… that we have football teams that are both powerful physically and mentally, they’ve had sports in their lives and so we’ve been using this week to have the students think intentionally about what change needs to happen in their communities and how can they come together as a group to do this.”
Representatives of Faith Ladies and Taking Over FC were present at the event and shared similar sentiments.
