Eddie Mensah
"All excellence deserves a chance to thrive. It is an honour to work at Right to Dream, working to give that chance to some of the most talented student-athletes I have ever come across"
GHANA ACADEMY
Fast forward to 2010, RTD launched a new $2.5million purpose-built facility — a fully residential international school that has since continued to grow its scholarship offerings for talented children drawn from all over Africa.
Right To Dream players and student-athletes receive the best possible development experiences to give them the best chance of reaching their maximum potential via the academy model that focuses on education, football, and most importantly developing their characters to the fullest.
Right To Dream began in 1999 on a small scale as a single not-for-profit football academy that trained just a few boys on a dust pitch in Accra, Ghana.
At RTD, we strive to develop our student-athletes into well-rounded future leaders who can not only represent our organisation in a high calibre and purpose-driven manner, but themselves and their respective communities too. We aim to get them to look beyond their very near futures and identify opportunities that can improve the lives of those around them in an authentic way. Football has a unique ability to achieve that, and it has consistently proved that it is one of the few forces that can unify where colour, race, gender, and religion divide.
Since its inception in 1999, 144 students have graduated from Right to Dream. 61 of the graduates play or have played professional football, and 43 have represented their country’s national team (14 at senior level, 29 at youth level). 76 of these inspirational young people accessed university scholarships in the USA or the UK as student-athletes.
Mohammed Kudus, Abdul Majeed Waris, and Kamaldeen Sulemana are all examples of Right to Dream graduates representing the Ghanaian national team and playing top-flight European football.
In May 2013, Right to Dream launched the first-ever residential girls' football academy in Africa, with girls joining from across three different West African countries from the beginning. To date, 14 girls have graduated from the academy and have gone to the USA on full scholarships.
Adelaide Armah is one of the first academy alumnae. She is now on the Michael Johnson scholarship, awarded to selected young people from around the world who "have faced and overcome adversity, have a passion for sport, a commitment to their community, and have been identified as having huge potential for leadership."
At the beginning of 2022, Princess Marfo became the first Right to Dream graduate to join the senior women's team at FC Nordsjaelland. Shortly after her arrival to Denmark, Princess earned her debut against league titleholders Fortuna Hjørring and has since featured several times in the final games of the current season. Princess’ FCN journey will open the door to more opportunities for talented young women at RTD to follow in her footsteps and explore potential futures in professional football.