SPORTS TRAINING FACILITY IN ACCRAFOR YOUNG GHANAIAN ATHLETES ASPIRING TO THE OLYMPICS

In a press statement following his visit to the African International Media Summit in Tunisia, Bruno Benetti, founder and chair of the Itipack Group, has announced plans in partnership with the NewSporAfrica Foundation, for whom he's a co-founder along with Mr. Jean-Pierre Sirot, to build a sports training facility using the Itipack Group's Itiblock construction system.

The facility will be built in Accra, Ghana for young athletes aspiring to participate in the Olympics and other major sports competitions. The Itipack Group and its subsidiary companies focus on advanced packaging technologies serving corporations throughout the world.

The Ghana portion of the facility-building project will be overseen by the Diaspora African Forum in Accra. “Time and again,” said Mr. Benetti, “the world is amazed by the achievements of Africa's world-class and Olympic-level athletes.

I recently traveled to Africa for the African International Media Summit and was impressed by what I saw, and felt inspired to contribute to the effort to help rebrand Africa. For our part, we want to encourage future African Olympic athletes by supporting their dreams and efforts today with a state-of-the-art training facility.

Working in partnership with the NewSporAfrica Foundation, this will be the first of several training facilities we hope to build in different parts of Africa.”

NewSporAfrica Foundation vice-president, Nadia Murabet, sees the partnership with Mr. Benetti as the herald call of a new dawn for relations between Europe and Africa. “The world owes Africa so much,” she said, speaking by telephone from Milan. “Africa in the 21st century will be a world-class continent.

Our vision is to use sports and art as the servant of ideals that promote peace and prosperity across Africa. We also have a vision of one day seeing an Olympic Games held somewhere, someday, in Africa.” Nadia Murabet is president of Vision Media, which produces cultural events around the world.

A Libyan by birth, Ms. Murabet attended the AIMS 2008 conference in Tunis, where she was awarded the “Global Achievers Award” in recognition of her outstanding work building bridges of art, culture and communication between Africa, Europe and throughout the African Diaspora.