Founder of FC Kellie and his vision of driving social change and development
through Sports in Sierra Leone By Leslie Koroma
Elijah Kellie
In the year 2000 the United Nations came up with a strategy to combat poverty and enhance social change around the world with what they dubbed the Millennium De- velopment Goals. Among those MDG's, Sports was chosen as one of the vehicles to enhance development mostly in the third world. A very small number of people in Africa have heeded the call to visualize and value the use of sports as tool for development and social change in their communities. 13 years on and almost at the sunset of the UN Millennium Development Goals as a project (the project expires in 2015), many Africans have yet to even understand how important sports is as a social catalyst.
Some still view it as just recreation, which in reality it truly is, but take a moment and look across the seas and you will see how many nations around the world have transcended their view of sports as just being a form of recreation and are using it today to create wealth and add much needed jobs to their economies. Enter a son of Africa, Elijah Kellie of the UK; a Sierra Leonean born British Citizen who, without even any prior knowledge of the UN MDG's has been doing exactly what the UN prescribed in those MDG’s 13 years ago, forming a Football Club that is registered as a second division team in Sierra Leone. A club whose primary motive is to use sports as a vehicle to help kids in Sierra Leone achieve their dreams of a better life by promoting peace, education, health and at the same time an avenue to realizing their sports dreams . I was able to talk to Elijah the Founder of FC Kellie and here is our conversation.
ASM: Good morning and how are you Elijah Kellie: I am fine, thank you very much for giving me this opportunity
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