President of Martisans Sports and Cultural Foundation, Mr. Desmond Mantey has admonished city and community planners to prioritise the welfare of children and youth in the society and not take for granted in view of the role they will play in our societies in the near future.

He made a call to all stakeholders to ensure that cities and communities are planned with the welfare of children in mind and there must be a concerted effort to ensure that every single community has a playground where children can enjoy sports and the benefits thereof.

He noted that supporting the foundation’s gender projects, sports project and other viable projects will help in the realization of the UN SDG 2030.

Martisans Sports and Cultural Foundation participated in this year’s world urban forum which took place from the 8th-13th of February 2020 in Abu Dhabi UAE.

The aim for participation was to network and meet with relevant stakeholders working on promoting UN SDG goal 3. Organized and convened by UN-Habitat, the World Urban Forum has become the foremost international gathering for exchanging views and experiences on sustainable urbanization in all its ramifications.

The inclusive nature of the forum, combined with high-level participation, makes it a unique United Nations conference and the premier international gathering on urban issues. The conference created the platform for like-minded individuals working to promote the UN SDG 2030 to network, share and exchange ideas in line with the sustainable development goals.

The theme for this year’s conference was “Cities of opportunities: connecting culture and innovation”. As part of the programme, participants discussed a wide arrange of issues centred on promoting the welfare of cities throughout the world. MSCF participation gave the foundation the opportunity to interact and learn from key stakeholders working on the realization of the UN SDG 2030.

Most importantly to the foundation, the issue of children and their welfare in a highly dynamic and rapidly changing society was addressed from different perspectives ranging from city planning and development, clean air, road safety environmental safety and a host of other relevant issues that has a direct effect on children and their development. The foundation was fortunate to learn about how other organizations are dealing similar problems and their innovative solutions to tackle these societal problems we face in the 21st century.

Nii Emmanuel Tetteh Oglie II, chief of Saki – Kpone, and an executive member of Martisans Sports and Cultural Foundation also made a call to government, traditional authorities and other stakeholders to ensure that community playgrounds are preserved and enhanced so that they can be used to positively shape the future of our children and youth who happens to be our future leaders.