“WaterpolowillchangethelivesofGhanaiankids”

A Black Star is about to shine at the upcoming HaBaWaBa International Festival. We are talking about the project started by Asante Sefa-Boakye, a 31-year-old waterpolo player from California, who returned to his family's homecountry Ghana in 2018 with the ambitious goal of spreading waterpolo to Sub-Saharan Africa. Some took him for a fool: before him, not even the international sport organizations had managed to spread waterpolo to a country where publicly affordable swimming pools can be counted on the fingers of one hand and only a small part of the population (32 million) can swim. However Sefa-Boakye believed that the situation could change, relying on three ingredients: the beauty of waterpolo, the enthusiasm of young Ghanaians, and his enormous commitment to fundraising. 

In five years, Black Star Polo has raised almost 30,000 dollars, turning into more than just a sports project. Sefa-Boakye has brought waterpolo to several towns in Ghana, bought goals and balls, teached boys and girls of all ages the fundamentals of the game and set up a local league, providing the poorest kids with meals and the opportunity to travel around the country. The success of Black Star Polo has been simply sensational: Sefa-Boakye started the project in Accra, in the pool of the Awutu Wintor Water Polo Club at the University of Ghana, but subsequently young Ghanaians started playing waterpolo in lakes, sea, wherever a ball could be floated. In fact, Black Star Polo proved that developing waterpolo in Central Africa is possible. And in a few weeks, the passion for the game of the Ghanaian kids will also spread to HaBaWaBa International Festival, which Black Star Polo U12 team will participate in. HaBaWaBa is the biggest and most important event for kids waterpolo in the world: in 2023 the 15^th edition edition it will be joined by 131 teams coming from 4 different continents.     "Nowadays we have 82 players in total, 22 of whom are in HaBaWaBa age group categories”, Sefa-Boakye, who has returned to San Diego these days to continue his fundraising campaign, tells us. “We will arrive in Lignano Sabbiadoro with 10 boys from three or four different areas of Ghana. Some of them come from the ghetto and have not had many opportunities in their lives. In order to participate in HaBaWaBa they are experiencing a series of ‘first times’: for the first time in their lives they have obtained documents and their first passport; they will take the plane and leave the country for the first time; for the first time they will participate in an international sports competition. A few days ago, some of them ate pizza for the first time after a training session. However, they still have no idea how their lives will change”.         Sefa-Boakye recalls how in the beginning it was the enthusiasm of the Ghanaian kids that made the Black Star Polo project possible. "Ghana is a country that loves sport, especially football. Swimming is not part of its culture, but the Ghanaian kids are very competitive, they get excited about new challenges. I showed them waterpolo, they liked it and I told them that if they wanted to play they would first have to learn to swim. They are ambitious and so, little by little, they learned to swim, then to hold the ball, to shoot, and so on. Basically they just needed a chance”. 

Now Sefa-Boakye is focusing his coaching efforts on preparing Black Star Polo for the HaBaWaBa International Festival. “Kids have great enthusiasm, everyone wants to score a goal in Italy! - he says - But participating in HaBaWaBa will help these kids to understand the great work they have to do to improve. They are not afraid of anything: not so long ago some of them could not even swim. They want to learn to play like the waterpolo champions they saw in World Cup games I showed them. They want to be as good as Thomas Vernoux: I told them that he also came to HaBaWaBa as a child. They want to be like him”. And like the other HaBaWaBa participants, the Black Star Polo kids will also have fun and get to know peers from all over the world. "Many children their age have never experienced something like this, HaBaWaBa is a golden opportunity for them. They will be able to connect with other kids, maybe make friends and bonds: waterpolo is all about relationships with other people, players, coaches. Joining this community is an opportunity for their lives that goes beyond sport”.  HaBaWaBa will also be an important showcase for the Black Star Polo project in the eyes of international sports institutions, such as World Aquatics. "We are proving that waterpolo can take root in Africa, even in countries without much tradition. There is a great desire for sport in Ghana, where there are swimming pools but they are not accessible to everyone. And spreading waterpolo will encourage people to learn how to swim, it will spread water safety, which is one of the key objectives for World Aquatics”.   Finally, for Sefa-Boakye, participation in the HaBaWaBa International Festival is a step towards his big dream: to see Ghana at the Olympics. “It’s something possible. When it all started, we were aiming for Los Angeles 2028, but it doesn’t matter if it will be in 2032 or 2036, there is no deadline. Not only do we want to go to the Games, we want to go there and be competitive. It's right to fuel this dream, anything is possible if we keep gathering resources. And who knows, one of the kids who is coming to HaBaWaBa maybe one day will be Ghana's captain at the Olympics”.  To follow the development of waterpolo in Ghana and support it with a donation visit blackstarwaterpolo.org. 

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