… organises football tournament

By Gabriel Ewepu, ABUJA

A nonprofit organization, Bedex Development Foundation, yesterday, harped on developing the sporting skills of Persons Living With Disabilities, PWDs, for keeping them healthy and having a sense of belonging.

The Chief Executive Officer, of Bedex Development Foundation, Bede Okafor, made the call during a football tournament the Foundation organised for the PWDs in Abuja, and the project theme is ‘Ability In Disability Through Sport’.

He said the way to bring smiles to the less privileged is also through sports in order to lighten the burden of PWDs as an inclusive programme especially made for them because most of them have sporting skills, and that adds value to their lives in the larger community.

According to him, following his discovery of a paralympic football team in Karmajiji, a suburb of Abuja, an discussed with a friend to see how they could support them.

He said: “So when I found out they had a football team in Karmajiji, I got with a friend and we discussed how we could further reach out to them.”

Meanwhile, he disclosed the Foundation’s plan to acquire a piece of land to be used as a training pitch in order to boost its capacity and competitiveness.

He added that the tournament will be a quarterly event to help change life of PWDs at he national and international levels.

However, he called on the Parasoccer Federation of Nigeria to partner with the Foundation on other projects.

At the end of the tournament, Team Abuja defeated Team Katsina 2-0 in the final to win the tournament held at Old Parade Ground Area 10 Sports Complex.

The winning team of the football tournament was given a cash prize of N150,000 while the runner-up was given N100,000.
Players awarded were Umar Dahiru- Best Player; Aliyu Tasiu- Best Defender; Lawal Umar- Best Coach, which all were from Team Katsina, while Mohammed Shaibu of the Abuja Team, went home with the Best Goal Scorer award.