GHANA: BOXING: With poor revenues from fishing young people are trading in their nets for boxing gloves and taking their chances in the sport with the hope of escaping poverty

Record ID: 799377

  • Title: GHANA: BOXING: With poor revenues from fishing young people are trading in their nets for boxing gloves and taking their chances in the sport with the hope of escaping poverty
  • Date: 15th October 2012
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF MENSAH AND TAGOU WATCHING A FIGHT ON TELEVISION .
  • Embargoed: 30th October 2012 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Usa, Ghana
  • City:
  • Country: Usa Ghana
  • Topics: Industry,Politics,People,Sports
  • Reuters ID: LVACIK3OQS7ADJL5C93DX48RCSZT
  • Story Text: Boxers start young in Accra's central neighbourhoods of Jamestown and Bukom, some as young as five.
    They spar fearlessly at gyms like this one alongside some of Ghana's best professional boxers.
    There are about 16 boxing gyms in Jamestown and neighbouring Bukom. Most of them are rundown but innovative, making use of the simplest material for equipment, like wooden planks and old metal chair frames.
    Willpower Gym owner and former World Boxing Council (WBC) Cruiserweight champion, Napoleon Tagoe is one of the most sort after coaches in Ghana.
    A former professional boxer himself, he challenged the government to give him resources to "unearth" Ghana's boxing talents earlier this year.
    One of his students is 29-year-old Albert Mensah who turned professional in 2003 and the WBA Pan African IBF intercontinental light welterweight title holder.
    "First, I am a footballer and I decided to join the boxing, because I love boxing a lot, if Ike Quartey is fighting and I watch it I feel happy, so happy and I know that if I join boxing, I will be somebody," said Mensah.
    Like Mensah, many young boxers look up to Ike "Bazooka" Quartey, one of Ghana's greatest boxing exports. Quartey was born and raised in Bukom and the WBA Welterweight Champion has entered the ring with some of the world's top boxers, including Oscar De La Hoya and Ronald "Winky" Wright from the USA.
    Tagoe says boxing brings hope, especially in communities like Jamestown and Bukom, where youth feel trapped by unemployment, lack of education and poverty.
    "I set up the gym because I want my community to know or to go far because the poverty we live in this area is not like people call 40, 20, (it is) 85 percent. We are 85 percent. If you like go to beach, the seaside, go to Korle-gonno (Accra suburb), go to Choko (Accra suburb) we have a big problem," he said.
    Jamestown and Bukom fishing villages are known as Ghana's heart of boxing talent. People tell stories of how cocoa farmers from the interior of the country would come to Accra to trade and while there, challenge fishermen done with their catch for the day to a fight.
    But while they are rich in fighting spirit, they are also some of Accra's poorest areas.
    According to a Ghana Fisheries Department survey done in 2009, rampant illegal fishing by foreign trawlers put the local industry on the verge of collapse.
    The overfishing means there is little to catch and local fishermen can hardly make a living. Over 1.8 million Ghanaians depend on the fishing industry according to the Agriculture Ministry.
    Boxing has become an alternative for many young men and even women, hoping to get discovered and move to America where Ghanaian boxers have made it big and can earn thousands of dollars per fight.
    Middleweight Champion, Thomas Awinbono says the returns on boxing are a major allure for Jamestown and Bukom youths, but because so many are interested, its harder to be the best.
    "As a boxer, you can make a lot of money in boxing, you know, there is money in boxing if only you are a very good boxer, you can make money, you understand and you can be famous," he said, during a training session at his local gym in Bukom.
    Sports analysts say successive governments have failed to realise the potential of boxing in the country and that a lot of talent remains untapped at the expense of more popular sports like football.
    "We have offered too much lip service to the sport, ok, when boxers return from victories they - I don't know whether for political reasons, would tell the whole nation, we are going to build a boxing gymnasium for this country. Governments in, governments out and nothing has happened. For me we've not done enough for boxing as we've done for football," said John Vigah, a sports journalist in Accra.
    Back at Will Power gym, Mensah studies moves on television. His hero, Ghana's Bazooka - Ike Qaurtey, was known to have one of the best boxing jabs of his time. Mensah hopes he can create a signature finishing move of his own.
    For the young aspiring boxers of Jamestown and Bukom, Mensah's success and that of other Ghanaian boxers coming out of the seaside neighbourhoods, brings their dreams that much closer to home.
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