SACF: Charity trudging on positive focus

In this season of giving, ten students from different schools across Nigeria are set to be beneficiaries of the Seyi Akinwunmi Charity Foundation (SACF) annual event which enters its eleventh edition on December 29 since debuting in 2014.

Organisers of the 2014 edition have said that the event would attract about 200 players drawn from various schools and they would be handled by 30 coaches who have been strictly selected for the boys and girls categories who would go into practical sessions where Under-13 boys and girls would showcase their talent in indirect kicks, penalty kicks and other aspects of football. According to the figures, 80 players and 16 officials will compete in the U-13 boys category while 40 players and eight officials will also compete in the U-15 girls category.

About 40 players and six officials would vie for honours in the main match of the day featuring Under-13 players of Team Lagos and Ajegunle United.

Many parents and youths in Lagos annually look forward to this charity event whose date interestingly is set to commemorate the birthday of the charity’s founder, Barrister Seyi Akinwunmi, who was up till September 2022 the first vice president of the Nigeria Football Federation. However, the attraction for the parents and youths is the fun that the event offers, which adds to the revelers’ expectations for the yuletide.

Yet, the charity event is more than just football games and practical sessions for the teens. For eleven years, it has offered life-changing experiences for the participating parents and their children. Ten students would win scholarships after this year’s event. Over 200 students have benefitted from 2014 to 2023.

The annual show initially catered to children in Lagos. But it soon evolved into a nationwide initiative, with children in Gombe, Enugu, Ogun, Borno and Kwara states benefiting, although it has only buoyed the founder’s vision for assembling children from diverse backgrounds using the universal language of football. From a football tournament, the foundation has since elevated to an education project serving to protect as well as preserve the future of youths.

According to Barrister Akinwunmi, the foundation has also stepped beyond providing scholarships for children. After weighing in on the financial challenges faced by some of the beneficiaries and their families, the foundation has provided accommodation for some of the needy.

There is also a unique touch to the foundation, as Barrister Akinwunmi, who would be 62 on December 29, offered: “Our project is transparent and it is public. Our resolve not to name the beneficiaries aims to protect the privacy and dignity of the children that we support and this approach ensures that the impact is the focus, rather than any potential leverage or gain for the foundation itself.”

Nonetheless, the founder provides the beneficiaries’ scorecard for the records: “Their performance at various institutions of learning where they were admitted is impressive. To say their life hasn’t been the same is also to say the very least. Of the over 200 kids that got the foundation’s scholarship, 26 have graduated with a minimum of second-class upper. So, this alone makes me give thanks to God and encourages me to do more to uplift the kids because, at the end of the day, the ultimate beneficiary will be the society.”

Barrister Akinwunmi sees a brighter future for the SACF, bolstering from his background as a Nigerian and UK-trained lawyer with expertise in finance, insolvency, debt and business recovery and reconstruction (being President of the Business Recovery and Insolvency Practitioners Association of Nigeria who is reputed to host the first-ever Insol Africa Round Table), expertise he brought to bear on high profile local and cross-border insolvency matters while acting as liquidator, receiver and turn around manager in various cases relating to the recovery of delinquent loans and asset tracing, and administered football in Lagos as the state’s Football Association chairman. It is for this foregoing reason, as well as his passion for poetry, music, sports and particularly football, while still passionately engaged in the laws that govern the passion, that he believes the foundation would become an institution in no distant future.