Community projects

TUFA - eenheidsvorming projectTUFA is a social project that goes beyond just the own players. The following projects are organized for the community:

 Fellowship Program
The fellowship program consists of life skills training for players of local clubs. Four times a year a joint program is organized, 1-on-1 coaching is done every three weeks. Players are selected based on their motivation to participate and develop a Personal Development Plan, which will be followed up in the individual sessions. The program starts with a group of fifteen to twenty players; after completion of the course these players will act as role models for the next group. This program too is designed and implemented in collaboration with AfriLEAD.
 

Ambassador Event
On completion of the fellowship program an ambassador event is organized yearly, in which participants share their experiences with football players from the region. The objective of this event is to encourage young people to take responsibility for their own future and to inspire them to take action.
TUFA ambassadors Nana Asare (FC Utrecht) and Iddi Abdul Yakinu (KV Mechelen) give a speech and a football clinic. Besides them ‘normal Ghanaian role models’ will be selected, young people who have a goal in life and have reached it. In future TUFA players who have started an alternative career will tell their story.
 

Local competition
From the start football clubs from the region have been involved in the development of the plans for the football academy. TUFA supports the local competition in the following way: - Fair transfer fees and re-transfer fees to clubs - Support through knowledge (among other things a coaching course in collaboration with KNVB, the Royal Dutch Football Association) - Support by means of resources (clothing, balls, etc.)  
 

Peace building
The north of Ghana is quite a bit less developed than the south and this underdevelopment caused tension between population groups to surface more quickly. Peace building is an essential part of TUFA and is interwoven through the life skills program and Ambassador Event. TUFA and TUFC players come from various population groups and at the same time play together as a team; this makes them rolemodels. Apart from this Peace Games are organized in collaboration with the Professional Football Association of Ghana and (ex) Black Stars. Football is a perfect means to create fraternization: it increases collaboration, respect and self-esteem.
 

Human trafficking and football migration
Every African football player dreams of playing in Europe. A lot of players therefore move down to Accra hoping to be able to play for a club or academy. That hope, however, seldom becomes truth which leads to frustration, poor living conditions in slums and crime. Even those who do manage to reach Europe are often disappointed: the agent that they paid a lot of money to lets them down, a contract cannot be forced and players are too ashamed to return: the majority ends up in the harsh reality of illegality.
In the course of 2013 TUFA will launch an information film about the real conditions that a lot of football migrants are in. With this film will be travelled around Ghana as a mobile cinema.