BURSARIES FOR SPORTS BOYS AND GIRLS (JUNIOR GRAPHIC, BACK PAGE)

Participants who excelled in the Annual Northern Regional Basic Schools Inter-District Sports Festival will now enjoy bursaries of GH¢50 each.
This followed the inauguration of a five-year sponsorship package in Tamale by RICS Charities, a non-governmental organisation.
The package was aimed at enhancing the competitiveness of the festival as well as identifying and harnessing the development of sports talents, particularly among the youth in the region.
The Chairman of the Board of Trustees for RICS, Mr Rex Danquah, who announced the package at a press briefing in Tamale, explained that his outfit had already provided four footballs, plaques, trophies and medals for winners of this year’s competition.
He stated that incentives would be provided to participants who would excel in the competition, adding that “a bursary of GH¢50 would be given to each participant for as long as you continue to strive for excellence”.
Mr Danquah further indicated that “this incentive will continue up to the university level for as long as the beneficiaries continue to engage in sporting activities and achieve excellence.”
He also stated that his outfit would collaborate with the Ghana Education Service (GES) to provide sponsorship package for children who were out of school, but had great talent in sports.
That measure, he said, was to enable such less-privileged children to get access to quality education, while making sure that they developed their respective sports talents to the highest level.
Another package, he said, was to “award GH¢20 to any pupil who could break 20-year old records and GH¢10 to those who could break any 10-year-old record, while GH¢5 would go to any pupil who could break records below 10 years.”
According to him, the RICS had a plan to open special accounts at some banks, where beneficiary students and pupils could go with their identity cards to enable them to collect their grants.
The Regional Director of Education, Mr John Hobenu, expressed gratitude to RICS for their gesture, and noted that it would encourage the participants to strive for excellence.
“Northern Ghana has always been a stalwart in producing the nation’s sports giants. I, therefore, entreat all stakeholders to support this move by RICS to alleviate poverty among school pupils and enhance the quality of competitive school sports,” Mr Hobenu noted.