Ghana’s front runner football academy, Right to Dream, invited former Black Stars player,Laryea Kingston and Kweku Awotwi, CEO of Tullow, to tour their base at Old Akrade in the Eastern Region on Thursday, March 28.
The duo toured the campus of ‘Right to Dream’ Academy and were brought up to speed with the activities of the academy by the students and administrators.
Right to Dream Academy is a purpose-built facility with eight pitches, dormitories, gymnasium and a LEGO Innovation Studio. The academy does not only provides world-class football education but also a modern, student-centred academic curriculum with a particular focus on Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM). The academy also seeks to unlock the skills needed for developing nations in a rapidly changing world.
Addressing the students after the tour, Laryea Kingston urged them to take their education as serious as they take their footballing career because the lifespan of a footballer is short and they will need something else to fall on after retirement
“Being at Right to Dream means if you can’t make it in football, you will have something else to do Even after football, when you retire you will still have your certificate and use it to get a job. “
The lifespan of a football career is very short. I didn’t have it easy growing up like you guys. They was nobody to advise me when I was young so I dumped education for football. But thankfully, I made it in football. What if I didn’t ? You’ve to seize this great opportunity and make something meaningful out of it,” Mr. Kingston said.
CEO of Tullow,Kweku Awotwi also reiterated their commitment and support to Right to Dream Academy.
“Right to Dream is providing a unique opportunity for young boys and girls to combine education and sports, and also providing a really amazing opportunity for them outside the country by getting educational scholarships in Europe.Being able to build young people to that caliber is really impressive and Tullow as a company and one of the big sponsors of Right to Dream, feels it’s really worthwhile because we are developing admirable young men and women,” he stated.
Mr. Awotwi added that as part of their plans to give these youngsters some working experience, they have decided to offer the students internship at Tullow .
“What we are doing now at Tullow is that we are working with them to bring some of the young people as interns into the company so that they also get some work experience as part of their development,” he noted.
Tullow in 2017, signed a two-year partnership to provide funds for the school to continue to enhance its delivery of STEM subjects with a particular focus on programming and robotics.
By: Ayishatu Zakaria Ali