The African and Sports Intiative Ghana has called on the Minister of Yoth and Sports, Hon. Elvis Afriyie Ankrah to use his good office to promote the lesser known and least financed sports disciplines.

This was made known when the Ghana branch of the African Sports Initiative paid a courtesy call at the Ministry of Youth and Sports. Led by the President Madam Tilly Alberta Acquah, she noted that her organisation was formed with the aim of empowering the youth through sports and their target is to get the future leaders out of social vices like drug abuse, teenage pregnacy and other activities that are criminal.

She saidAfrican Sports Initiative Ghana has great plans to support the youth and the disabled who love sports or have skills and talent to do sports. Tilly Acquah said they want to use their platform to help the youth to organise exchange programmes and create opportunites to sustain the youth. She pleaded with the media to propagate their message and also help in promoting the lesser known sports.

Hon Elvis Afriyie Ankrah adviced the Ghana branch to use their initiastive to propagate the positives of sports and support the youth to get out of social vices. He noted the Ghana should be the first reference point when it comes to sports. He urged the members to mobilise themselves to promote the games and events that do not attract media attention so that the media can shift focus on those events. As a listening minister who is watching very well how sports activities are run, he charged the African Sports Initiative members to be proactive and sell the name of Ghana positively.

Among the menbers of the African Sports Initiative Ghana who called on the Sports Minister were the President, Vice President Kareem Abdul Razaq, Cynthia Akwele Lamptey, Dennis Moore, George Nyame aka Mr. Ghana and Mohammed Mustafa of Nima Beach Soccer fame.

The African Sports Initiative was founded in Ghana in 2010 with other members from Nigeria, Togo, Benin, Liberia, Mali, Burkina Faso and Cote d Ivoire, but due to the innovative drive of the Ghana members, Accra has been chosen as the headquarters. The African Sports Initiative focuses on four main areasn namely - Activities, Education, Policy making and Human resource development.

Their mian aim is to use sports to develop the human resources of the continent and support the disabled who have interest in sports. They also want to bridge the gap between urban and rural areas as well as provide sporting opportunities to the youth at local and international levels and equipe the youth with knowledge and power to be bold and creative.

Meanwhile, according to Mohammed Mustapha and George Nyame, they are rolling an event in April to tap young footballers in Ghana tp represent the nation in an international tournament in Benin. Vice President Kareen said the event dubbed HOPE FOR THE YOUTH 2013 will be their first major sports activity and more will follow later in the year. Dennis Moore the Public Affairs Manager of the Initiative urged the media to back them and support the lesser known sports like cycling, badminton, volleyball, basketball, hockey, beach soccer, judo, taekwodo, table tennis and others.