ANOPA Project, a non-governmental charity organization, has been crowned the Charity Organization of the Year.

At  an award ceremony held by the Centre for Africa Corporate Business Honors and Expo at the La Palm Royal Beach Resort in Accra, the NGO emerged the winner of the coveted award after receiving four nominations in the past years.

The ANOPA Project is a sports for development project established in 2010 and has been in existence for 12 years. It is a project that uses sports to improve the inclusion and integration of vulnerable groups and people with disabilities, particularly deaf and blind people and kids with other types of disabilities.

Through a number of interventions, the project has helped many children receive high-quality education through scholarships and has given many deaf and blind school dropouts technical assistance to learn technical and vocational skills in sports like swimming, basketball, volley ball, and others. This technical support is to help these children build their confidence as well as build an inclusive society.

Sharing his elation about the award, the Executive Director of ANOPA Project, Ernest Appiah, intimated that this was the first time his organization had been noticed after its existence for 12 years.

He said that the group would keep working harder to ensure that other kids felt like they belonged to society.

“We are very happy about this award. We’ve been in existence for 12 years now and this is the first time we have been noticed. And that’s a good feeling. It’s a good thing for anybody to be recognized if you do something that promotes some of these sustainable development goals. We won't stop working until we reach the goals we've set," he declared.

He added that his organization was in collaboration with a special needs school and intends to use sports to promote education and integration of these special-needs students.

“God will give us the urge to do more and to also try and bring other differently-abled kids on board. At the moment, we’ve started a project with Aboom School for those with Down Syndrome. We are using sports as well to promote their education and their integration.”

He stated that the ANOPA Project seeks to support children with disabilities and children from underprivileged backgrounds in other areas.

Mr. Appiah also thanked the RYTHM Foundation for providing financial support for the project's activities for the past three years. He said that the ANOPA project was optimistic that its relationship with the foundation would grow and significantly contribute to the support of additional disabled children in Ghana.

He also thanked other partners, including Sport4development, Germany, the French Embassy, the Memphis Foundation, and GlobalGiving.

The ANOPA Project also received a citation from the 2022 Humanitarian Awards Global after its nomination as Best Physical and Mental Advocate. The project also received a nomination as the Best Educational NGO at the 2022 EDUCOMS Award.