President of the West Africa Union of Ewes and an Executive Member of the Ghana Boxing Federation (GBF), Foster Enam Dagadu, has appealed for support towards organizing a successful Ewe Nations Cup soccer tournament.
He made the appeal at the launch of the Nations Cup in Lome, Togo.
The tournament is to promote peace and unity through sports among indigenes of the four Ewe speaking West African countries that form the Union.
“I believe sports, especially football can be used to bring Ewes together and put priority on the dialect.
Many people in west Africa including Ghana, Togo, Benin and Nigeria, don’t know that Ewe is our common language.
We have over six million Ewes in Ghana, three million in Togo, about six hundred thousand in Benin and over five hundred thousand in Nigeria,” Mr Dagadu told the Media at the event.
He said the tournament would be an annual event to bring Eweland together and encourage the people to speak the Ewe language and give Ewe names to their children in a bid to identify with and market the language.
“If you know Ewe is spoken in all these countries, you will be proud to speak it and be identified with it,” the astute sports journalist said.
Dagadu appealed to the general public, especially Ewes to come to the aid of the Union to enable it pay for the accommodation, feeding, transportation and medals for the four teams which would be participating in the one week tournament scheduled to come off in Ho, the Volta regional capital in November.
Torgbi Dikenu II, Chief of Nogokpo and an Executive member of the Union, urged all Ewes in West Africa to embrace their culture and traditions and to continue to propagate it wherever they go.
“We must be proud of our culture and traditions and learn to speak the Ewe language which identifies us as a people, inculcating same in the younger generation,” he said.
Torgbi Dikenu also appealed to all well-meaning individuals and institutions to throw their support behind the Union for a successful tournament and Union’s set goals.
Kindly channel all donations to the following Mobile Money number which is also the official contact number of the Union: +233 (0) 598962084 or through the following Bank Account:
Account No.: 1035000006528
Account Name: Ewe Map
Bank Name: Access Bank, Ho Branch.
By Leo Nelson || Ghananewsonline.com.gh