A Conversation with Chinasa Ukandu, Chair of Youths Sports Initiative (YSI)

Chiagozie Diala, ZODML’S Head of Projects, spent an afternoon with Chinasa Ukandu discussing the evolution of her NGO, Youths Sports Initiative. As Head of Projects at ZODML, I have been privileged to oversee the execution of many laudable projects and meet a lot of inspiring people. Our most recent BookCorner project (the handover of which took place at Aunty Ayo’s Girls Secondary School) brought me in contact with Chinasa Mandy Ukandu, who had graciously agreed to be the project’s ambassador. 23 year-old Ukandu is the chair of Youths Sports Initiative (YSI), an NGO whose mission is to create opportunities for children and young people through physical education and community sports. I spent an afternoon with her and listened to her story.
“In 2003 when I was 14 the British Council came to my school to organise a program called ‘Dreams and Teams’ and I was selected and trained as one of its young leaders. Twenty of us were trained and we were given a certificate afterwards. I paid no attention to mine and just tossed it away - it was just a certificate. “I later heard of a community project called ‘Community Action Through Sports’ (CATS), also organised by the British Council. It was a sort of sports centre at Government College, Eric Moore in Surulere, Lagos State where school children went in the afternoons to participate in different types of sports. I went to the centre and asked Deborah Ball (CATS’s director) what the requirements to participate in the project were, and she said I should just come to the centre with my sports kit.  The next day I went with my kit and she asked the coach to let me join the project. The coach then said they were looking for children that had been trained to act as leaders. I ran up to Deborah and told her that I had been trained as a ‘Dreams and Teams’ young leader and showed her my certificate. She was very impressed and asked the coach to make me one of the leaders. “Later that year, Queen Elizabeth of England and her husband the Duke of Edinburgh visited Nigeria, and I was among a selection of CATS leaders that engaged the Duke in a question-and-answer session at the Union Bank sports complex. “In 2005 the International Young Leaders Conference was held in England. Every African country was represented by two or three people, and I was one of two CATS leaders representing Nigeria. That was my first journey outside Nigeria. During the opening ceremony at Loughborough University, Deborah Ball whispered to me that I was to be the one to say something about Africa. I was very nervous and when I was called up to speak and I didn’t know what to say. My first few words didn’t seem to make sense and everyone was just staring at me. Suddenly I remembered something I had been told in one of my many leadership training sessions: ‘Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission’ (a version of Eleanor Roosevelt’s famous quotation: ‘No one can make you feel inferior without your consent’). In a very loud voice I said, ‘Nobody can me feel inferior without my permission.’ To my surprise and delight, everyone started clapping. I gained confidence and made my little speech. I later learnt that my photo and the quote appeared in a British newspaper. “In 2007 the British Council decided to end their involvement with CATS and began training eight leaders to carry on the project. I was one of the eight chosen, and we spent about 2 months in England being trained. At a send-off party for Deborah Ball we (the CATS leaders) gave her a crown on which ‘Mama CATS’ was written. Towards the end of the party, she gave her farewell speech and placed the crown on my head, saying she was handing the leadership of CATS over to me.
“No one told us how we were supposed to carry on CATS; all we knew was that every Tuesday and Thursday children participating in the project met at the sports centre and we had to organise activities for them. Eager children continued to flock to the centre every day wanting to become CATS participants, so we had to find a way to continue the project. The British Council had left all the sports equipment behind, but we had no money for repairs or replacements, so we went to Deborah Ball to ask for money and she was able to raise £2,000 for us. “When we exhausted the money Deborah Ball had raised, like Oliver Twist we went back asking for more. Deborah Ball had left Nigeria by now and the new British Council director informed us that before her departure she had left an envelope with instructions that it be given to us if we showed determination to run CATS. When the envelope was opened it was found to contain instructions for the conversion of CATS to an NGO with me as its head. “I was petrified and immediately refused the honour. I knew nothing about running an NGO and many of my fellow CATS leaders were much older than me and I didn’t think I would be able to manage them. When Deborah was told that I had refused to head the NGO, she asked one of my mentors to try to persuade me to change my mind, which I very reluctantly did, mainly because not relenting would have meant the end of CATS, which would have been hard for me because I had come to love the children we worked with. “We were advised that it was best for CATS to be registered as an international NGO, meaning that the word ‘community’ had to be dropped from its name as it suggested the organisation had a local presence only. After much discussion, we agreed to call it Youth Sports Initiative (YSI).  YSI was registered as an NGO in 2010. We continued CATS as a YSI project so that our work with our community children did not stop. “The following year the Barclays Premier League decided to establish an initiative – the Premier Skills Project – in Nigeria and was looking for NGOs to partner with. They invited NGOs to a conference in Kano and we were asked to make presentations. When I walked into the conference hall, all eyes were on me. I was casually dressed, while everyone else wore a suit and had a laptop. I was also the youngest person there. People kept staring at me, wondering if I was a messenger or a leader. I gave my presentation and two months later, I received an email that YSI had been selected as a Premier Skills Project partner. “YSI has done a lot in terms of organising sports events at local government schools. These have helped develop the confidence, teamwork and discipline of the students. The children we have trained have been able to give back to their schools by organising activities without supervision, including sports festivals. They also know how to lead and manage the resources they have. They can improvise.”
While speaking to Chinasa, I recalled the words of Pope Pius XII:
“Sport, properly directed, develops character, makes a person courageous, a generous loser, and a gracious victor; it refines the senses, gives intellectual penetration, and steels the will to endurance. It is not merely a physical development then. Sport, rightly understood, is an occupation of the whole person, and while perfecting the body as an instrument of the mind, it also makes the mind itself a more refined instrument for the search and communication of truth….”
Her story and the development of YSI have led me to a better understanding of the impact and importance of sport for young people. I am lucky that I get such great insights through my work at ZODML.