Voices For Jamaica Today Keeps Up The “Gud Vybz” By Awarding $JMD 100,000 To Winners Of The Upliftment Football Competition
Benevolent social impact entrepreneur and record producer Andre Blackwood has been committed to strengthening the community of Fletcher’s Land and its environs. After spending his formative years in Fletcher’s Land playing football with his peers in the community, he conceptualized The “Gud Vybz” initiative, as it is called, a program launched to inspire young men to keep working toward preserving a peaceful neighborhood through community building projects.
One of the activities included a football competition named The Upliftment Football competition at the local football court named “Fletcher’s Land Coliseum”. The series of matches were sponsored by Blackwood’s record label I.O.K.I. Productions and Voices for Jamaica Today, a non-profit, Blackwood is also a part of.
The Voices For Jamaica Today Foundation which strives to develop Jamaica has embarked on numerous fundraising and community development projects across Jamaica to raise awareness of key issues and to assist the most vulnerable.
One of the organizers Dante Green, gathered men from Fletcher’s Land, Tivoli Gardens, Greenwich Gardens. Arnett Gardens, Jungle and surrounding areas in West Kingston to make fourteen teams and ended with an exciting final match on Sunday, December 18, 2022, where Angola FC faced off against John’s Lane FC in a fierce final battle. The prize is $JMD100,000 to be split equally among the ten footballers of the winning team.
Dante Green shares that as a young person growing up, Fletcher’s Land had a lot of football competitions that brought everyone together. He wanted to continue that, “Certain wars started coming up, people started dying, so me and co-organizer Brandon decided to bring back the competition and now we are bringing back the community and bringing back the joy,” he shared at the cheque handover last Thursday.
The captain of John’s Lane, goalie Robert Daley, shared his enthusiasm for winning the competition and is excited about continuing the efforts to keep playing football.
Andre Blackwood who presented the cheque alongside the director of I.O.K.I. Productions and Voices for Jamaica Today’s Patrice “Q Soul” Pinkney, applauded the young men for participating in the football competition, “They said when sports are happening there is less crime. The competition stopped the crime and allowed the men to come up with different ways to deal with conflict resolution.” Blackwood added.
His hope is with more light shining on this initiative, the community will receive more sponsorship and overall support.
The cheque of $JMD100,000 was presented to Robert Daley, captain of John’s Lane FC, on behalf of the other nine winners of the Upliftment football competition on Thursday, January 19th,2023. He will use the prize money to buy cleats.