30 less privileged children to be picked from UNESCO/TIG training exercise

The Head coach of Tony International Gymnastics, TIG, Anthony Asuquo has disclosed that 30 outstanding children from the one-day training event for less privileged children in the Federal Capital Territory have been selected after the event, for continuous training and mentoring.

Coach Asuquo disclosed this while speaking with reporters after the event, staged at the Abuja National Stadium at the weekend to mark the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)’s International Day of Sport for Development and Peace across the world.

“We are picking 10 kids from each of the three groups [basketball, badminton and gymnastics], we will continue training them for free and work with them till next year. We will record our achievements and present to UNESCO for further action.

He said the selected kids will take part in competitions which will help them to continue improving.

“The programme is for the less privileged children,” he said. “We are test running in Abuja but the aim is to take it to all the states of the federation. We are training them in three sports, badminton, gymnastics and basketball.

Coach Asuquo commended the turnout, saying “we had over 300 kids here which is more than our target of 300.”

“If we continue like this, it’s going to change a whole lot of things, including child abuse and street hawking. The children will channel their attention and strength into doing sports.”

On his part, the UNESCO programme specialist in the Multisectoral Region Office, Abuja Hugue Ngandeu who said one of the essential values of sports was to provide inclusion and breakdown social barriers, stressed that “we are targeting the less privileged kids of the society to give them the opportunity to discover and develop their skills.”

He added that: “We have realised that most of the kids are without basic equipment. We will see how to continue interacting with organisations with interest in kids to see wheat we can get for the children.”