Zanzibar — ZANZIBAR President Ali Mohamed Shein has received part of the 20,000 footballs at the State House here on Wednesday, which will be distributed to various youth teams in the Isles.

Receiving the balls from the 'One World Football for Africa' Committee, president, Shein expressed his gratitude to the committee for initiating the project.

He was optimistic that the balls will help in the efforts to identify new talented players from among children in the islands. Shein said it was also an opportunity to keeping children with healthy minds because they will regularly be involved in playing football.

He called for fairness and honesty in the distribution the balls to recipients. "You should make sure that there is no bias in distributing these balls," said Shein. One World Football is targeting to distribute 20,000 balls in the islands.

The project was launched last month with an objective of helping children psychologically at this time when most children are victims of war, and different types of abuse. This project is being implemented in many countries.

Zanzibar National Sports Council (ZNSC) in collaboration with Save-the-Children initiated the 900m/- project in the islands. According to ZNSC Chairperson Sharifa Khamis, children in schools, sports clubs, disabled persons, sober houses and grassroots teams in districts and regions will benefit from the 'One World Football for Africa'.

"About 50 per cent of balls will be distributed to government and private schools, and 30-40 per cent will go to the Zanzibar Football Association (ZFA), which has registered about 1,200 football teams. At least 340,000 people will benefit from the project," Sharifa said.