By Kemoh Sesay
The National Scrabble Association of Sierra Leone (NSASL) has become the 32nd Sporting discipline to be registered with the Sports Council of Sierra Leone. The organisation's Vice President told a news conference in Freetown that their "persistence and untiring effort to gain recognition" has now been realised. Jeffery Coker thanked the ministry for recognising his sport. He said the deputy minister of sport, Ishmael Al-Sankoh Conteh, personally assessed their organisation before they were officially recognised at a meeting of the Sport Council.
Coker described the political recognition as something like the first steps of a toddler. He said "we still have teething problems - an office space, materials, finance, a broad membership including females and international recognition despite the fact that we been helping ourselves...we need more, especially when we organize competitions nationwide to pick out the best from the rest."
The Vice President they now have fifty members throughout the country and they intend to introduce the game to schools and tertiary institutions after the proposal was endorsed by the Minister of Education Minkailu Bah who, according to Coker, said ‘’scrabble will help sharpen the minds of pupils and increase their vocabulary as scrabble is a mind game, even with other sporting disciplines, if the mind is not tuned, success will be impossible."
According to Sport Minister Paul Kamara "scrabble should bring about a new mentality in individuals of other sporting disciplines and I am interested to see the pilot project...we can then tap opportunities and access funds to support the association.
(C) Politico 13/08/15
