Talented local footballer Craig Lobb has been in Africa making a difference on the ‘Football for Hope’ project. In the final piece of a two-part column from Ghana, the Hartlepool-born 25-year-old describes his experiences
Over the past ten weeks I’ve been privileged to have obtained an astonishing experience as part of a successful team of volunteers, embarking on livelihood and educational projects in Cape Coast, Ghana.
Following on from my previous report, it was vital the team were able to have a direct impact on the limited time we had to make a difference within the communities. The Football for Hope Centre was clearly struggling with lack of resources, so we were assigned to contribute to its resurrection.
 The homework club was aimed to provide additional tuition for any child looking to improve and enhance on their basic educational knowledge. As a counterpart pairing, we were each assigned a class to teach and hearing them adapt the famous North-East accent added to the enjoyment.
With each lesson I gradually gained respect from the children who were enthusiastic and embraced in a diverse cultural learning style I’d applied. With the bonus of a weekly core-programme session based on a health, social and soccer curriculum, it gave us the freedom to embellish on the activity aspects of learning.
Our first livelihood contribution was partaking in Ghana’s national sanitation day. This was a surreal experience envisaging the fellowship in unity that was portrayed within the communities, showing a respectful togetherness in taking pride to clean the community.
On the third weekend we visited Abrobiano, a small fishing village where the other half of Lattitude ICS volunteers were embarking on their projects. With this opportunity we spent the night in rural conditions and surroundings affected by extreme poverty.
There was, though, a beauty in the simplicity of life and the communism it had; in juxtaposition with the materialistic ways of the UK. This experience is something I’ll not forget, as it was an emotional perspective of things I take for granted on a daily basis.
The team’s first major event on Valentine’s Day, was an accomplishment in raising awareness on health and safe sex. We marched the streets with a local school's brass band to the Independence Square, where around four hundred people attended, to be educated on the teenage pregnancy and STI issues plaguing the surrounding community.
March 21 was the international elimination of racial discrimination day, commemorating the anniversary of the South African Sharpeville massacre. After hosting a UK v Ghana football game, we presented a workshop on anti-racism. This included the history of apartheid, and how its social system racially segregated black people by depriving them of the same political and economic rights that white people held.
Abolished in 1994, Africans now hold a cultural event named, Panafest. Held in Ghana every two years it promotes and enhances unity, pan-Africanism and the development of the continent. Also, tours of places with historic interest, including the slave dungeons in both Cape Coast and Elmina Castle.
An educational tour of Elmina left me astonished in disbelief of the horrifying conditions the African slaves were kept. Built by the Portuguese in 1482, they started exporting slaves from West Africa across the Atlantic Ocean to America. European powers soon joined the trade, such as the Danes, Dutch, English, French, Germans and the Swedes, which spanned two centuries.
The most beneficial project a one that I hope leaves the legacy of cycle five volunteers as one that developed Cape Coast’s unemployment issue. After gathering research among the communities we set up a job centre to influence those seeking jobs to come and participate on a six-week course on vocational skills, adult education, social skills and self-confidence building workshops.
I would like to thank everyone that has supported me through my volunteering journey and would advise anyone looking to experience cross cultural empowerment in fighting poverty, to apply to Lattitude ICS.
To conclude, a poem I’d written in reflection of my time in Cape Coast. A city that had surpassed all my expectations; with its significant beauty, containing the welcoming, passionate and diligent population.
Distant cultures entwine as one
This life experience in Ghana begun,
Ambitions, initions, revolution to change
Into Cape Coast we emphatically engage,
Curious minds on tribulations we discover
Will develop in time, one to another
Awareness impact in our communities is praised,
Addressing the issues that are commonly raised
To perpetuate our progress that the future beholds,
And challenge ourselves to change our world
No inequality, race, religion to overcome,
Distant cultures entwine as one.