Sports

The nostalgia of past African lifestyles for older generations often includes memories of the unique indigenous games they played as children. If you and I ever discussed such games in person, I would always confidently proclaim that I was (and still am) an undefeated champion in ampe, oware and ludo. Despite the clearly imminent defeat on any challenger’s part, we would be engaging in activities that were designed to build values of fair competition, teamwork, and critical thinking. Besides the amusement that such games have created for participants, ancient African games have influenced the morale within communities, reinforced educational concepts, and developed the social behavior of children.

Social Development

Playing games that require sportsmanship and fairness helps to build children’s appreciation of effective methods of conflict resolution and negotiation. As children grow up and uphold these values, the games can support a developed understanding of social standards in addressing differences between individuals or groups with fairness. Many ancient African games such as Fanorana, Kharbaga, or Seega (variations of checkers) were based on principles of self-control, patience, moral reasoning, and planning, which are all qualities that are crucial for the healthy development of children and society.

Community Building

Ampe is a game that is played in teams. Competing teams choose which pattern they represent. If both players thrust out the same feet, one team wins a point and if both players thrust out opposite feet, the other wins a point. In a video created by Tim Hull for the international organization Right To Play, a 100 year old Madam Rose Animah and an 88 year old Madam Elizabeth Kyei explained that during their childhoods, ampe was played as a communal activity. The game was played in tournaments, which could last three days and involved the cheering support of spectator crowds. Competitors often attended the games dressed in attire fit for playing with maximized efficiency. In Ghana, ampe is now usually played by children on school grounds or at home. Although the game has survived many years, ampe is hardly played with such a high degree of community involvement. The transition of social living into an independent, nuclear family-centered lifestyle has likely played a significant role in this change.

Educational Reinforcement

Oware (also called Mancala or Bao) is another ancient game that is still popular today. Dating back thousands of years, archaeologists discovered evidence of this game on Egyptian tombs in Luxor and Thebes. There are 200 reported versions of this game throughout Africa. North and West African versions of the game use two rows of pits, while Eastern and Southern African versions use three or four rows. Oware is often played by two opponents with or without an audience. The objective of the game is to strategically place the pebbles in the pits with the objective of taking over the opponent’s pits. Games such as oware reinforce educational concepts of planning, strategy, and mathematical calculations.

Impacting Children’s Games Today

In the early 1960s, the late Efua Sutherland wrote Playtime in Africa, a groundbreaking book on the culture of playtime in Ghana. The book was illustrated with photographs by Willis E. Bell, which provided documentation of children playing in the newly independent Ghana. Inspired by this book, Mmofra foundation was created to enrich the cultural and intellectual lives of children in Ghana with supporting resources for the development of creativity and communicative education. Now in its 15th year, Mmofra Foundation is noted for its extensive work in providing workshops and exhibitions in visual art, literacy and public health initiatives, book and audio-visual development, and cross-cultural exposure among others. Mmofra Foundation is a great example of a natural solution to the decreasing recognition and availability of culturally relevant games today.

In 2001, the South African Sports Commission launched a campaign to introduce the playing of ancient African games with the goal of holding national and possibly international tournaments in the next year. Although it is unclear how successful this initiative was, such an approach may be a viable solution to the revival of the games that many Africans have come to appreciate as learning tools for children and cultural entertaining activities.

Having benefited from a childhood of these educational, entertaining games, we have a responsibility to pass these on to the children around us. Children like to whisper secrets and share them. Here is one I have for you: “Our African cultural games play an important role in the social development, educational reinforcement, and community building of our society. We should value them as precious components of our history and heritage.” Pass it on! Come on, spread it like wildfire!

-Sharon Obuobi

Sports – and soccer in particular – have been a central component of African cultures for many years. On any day after working hours, one can easily find teams of varying numbers battling for field dominance on the soccer field. While sports like soccer are very common on the African terrain, disabled sports are relatively less common.

A film called Rollaball tells the story of the Ghanaian Rolling Rockets and its players. The Rolling Rockets is a team of soccer players who have been affected by polio. Unable to walk or run, the players create skateboards, which they sit and glide on, using their hands as navigators on the pavement.

People with disabilities often face social barriers that decrease their access to education and employment. Stigma and socio-economic marginalization are just some of the factors that decrease their standard of living. In order to survive, some of the Rolling Rockets teammates beg for money on the streets from people driving by. This activity is very dangerous particularly due to the minimal visibility of the disabled players who can hardly reach the height of a car’s side-mirror, thus running the high risk of getting injured. With limited options the players are forced to risk their lives in order to feed themselves and their families.

“Despite all the odds,” film director Eddie Edwards describes the Rolling Rockets as “incredible athletes who deserve to be stars. They have inspired something in me and I believe they’ll inspire many others. Both on and off the field, their stories are legendary. With the film, Eddie Edwards hopes to make the sport a Paralympic sport.

Disabled sports help improve the social inclusion and perceptions of people with disabilities. Encountering disabled people in the positive context of sports directs attention to the outstanding capabilities of the disabled players despite their physical limitations. A lack of disabled sports rather characterizes sports as another area where people with disabilities are excluded. The Sports and Development Organization suggests, “sport can be a low-cost and effective means to foster positive health and well-being, social inclusion and community building for people with a disability.”

There are many opportunities for expansion in this area. Film director Eddie Edwards hopes that the Rolling Rockets team will serve as role models and will inspire others to create awareness about the plight of disabled people. As young capable Africans, there is a lot that we can do to develop disabled sports in Africa. We can support or develop teams of disabled players. We can support and generate publicity for disabled sport events. It can even be as simple as joining the conversation about the stigma that disabled people face. After a successful Kickstarter campaign, Rollaball is currently in production and set to be released in 2013.

-Sharon Obuobi

Image credit: http://www.afropunk.com; http://rollaballmovie.com

Whether you call it Wari, Woro, Awele, Oware (Owari), Kboo, Kbo, Ayo, Ayoayo, Kale, Aghi and in Mandinka, mancala. Those who have played know that this game can be very addicting. So addicting that you can spend days on end playing the game, telling stories around the game, taking breaks just to eat and even having intense arguments —or maybe those are just my experiences with it.

Mancala can be played almost anywhere and made out of almost anything. My mom told me many times that they played at boarding school (in Kinshasa, DRC) by creating circles using chalk and collecting rocks or using uncooked beans. You can even make a “board” out of a milk carton. Whatever you call it most Mancala games have a common trend to how it’s played. There are always a certain number of seeds placed in each of the pits of the board. A turn consists of picking up the seeds and placing one in each of the pits in a sequence, usually counterclockwise. The objective of the game is to capture more seeds than the opponent or sometimes capture all seeds in either row, or the front row if there are several pits. Mancala can often be known as the National Game of Africa. Its origins are traced back to Africa although the actual name Mancala is defined as “moved” in Arabic. I say if curling can be in the Olympics than why not Mancala right? The rules to qualify as an Olympic sport are stated as:

Although it seems a bit long drawn, I don’t see why Mancala cannot be made official. If not as part of the Olympics, then as a general official game in some countries. It’s played all over the world and it’s an ancient game with lots of history. The game also involves a lot of strategy and planning. Even if the game never becomes an official game, it still brings people together to enjoy during almost any event. This is what I think the nature of many known and unknown African games does, they embody the nature of unity and togetherness which is important also.

See what the game is called in your country HERE!

-Deana Bolumbu

Image Credit: http://fritzdooley.com/mancala

Sports has been recognised as one of the domains that propels physical and mental balance, unity, and cultural exchange between different people worldwide. Africa has risen above the constraints of poverty and discord with brilliant performances by athletes displaying integrity, tolerance, solidarity, generosity, and individual respect. Unfortunately in Africa, measures to defend African dignity and win back sporting excellence has been undermined by corruption, cheating, disorganization, embezzlement, conflict of interest, violence, intolerance, and lack of respect for the code of ethic based on “African values.”

Sports development in Africa can be achieved by cultivating constant reminders of basic African ethics in the minds of the sporting leaders and athletes for the healthy management and practice of sports in order to counteract the deviations born of superstition and money intrusive.

Furthermore strong ties of solidarity should be created between the state and sports association to pursue the exclusive aim of developing sports in Africa. Other ways of sports development can include:

• Understanding how sustainability is conceptualised by indigenous and overseas agencies that contribute to sports based developments;
• Encouraging sport personnel financially to give them a psychological lift and display love towards their services,
• Learning about the factors that support or hinder the achievement of sustainable development; http://www.sportandder.org
• Recognizing the role that sports plays in the cultural, social, economic, and political life of individuals and communities, as well as in building greater communities.

Africa so far has patronised sporting activities, adhering to the games introduced by the foreigners and totally negating the primary, and in most cases Ancient Traditional African originated, sporting games in different countries of the continent.

Africa participates in games like football, badminton, cricket, basketball, and so many others, totally dismissing the fact that there are African games that need to be supported, publicised, and promoted in every way to make them known worldwide. Games like Alancho (a puzzle seed game for 2, 3, or 4 players), Koka (traditional boxing), Abula (a ball game played across the net with a wooden baton) [click for more information].

If these African traditional games are publicised and financed properly they could attract world recognition and this could in turn boost Africa’s international sports ratings and also establish a huge level of positive development in African sports.

Lately African soccer players are almost running far away from national leagues by playing in football clubs in other continents where they obviously earn more reasonably, this explicitly conveys a message to African football clubs that they are in dired need of more publicity financial sponsorship. If that happened, Africa’s soccer players will remain in the continent without the thought of leaving, thereby giving a huge mark for development to set in.

-Ekene Morah

Image credit: http://mg.co.za