SAN FRANCISCO, December 09, (THEWILL) – The BBC Sport NI’s 2020 Unsung Hero Award has been won by an asylum seeker from Nigeria for his work in encouraging people from ethnic minorities to play sport.
The winner, Adekanmi Abayomi, is a south Belfast-based volunteer who set up the Ethnic Minority Sports Organisation Northern Ireland group (EMSONI).
Popularly known simply as “Kanmi”, he is passionate about how sport can help integrate ethnic minorities in communities. The multi-talented volunteer is also a qualified football and handball coach and referee.
With this award, Adekanmi will represent Northern Ireland as one of the 15 regional finalists for the overall Unsung Hero Award. That overall winner will be announced live on BBC One on Sunday, December 20.
“I really didn’t expect this award. It came as a shock to me, so I am really excited and happy about it. This will be in my memory for a long time,” Adekanmi said in reaction.
The 40-year-old works throughout Northern Ireland encouraging and promoting the importance of sport at a grassroots level, inspiring others to take part and help reduce racial inequality in sport.
In addition to that, he teaches walking football twice a week and helped set up the Walking Football Federation in Northern Ireland, which now boasts two teams from ethnic minority backgrounds.
However, one of the most successful initiatives set up by Adekanmi was the Northern Ireland Confederations Cup last year. It is a football tournament that brings together teams from 12 communities across Northern Ireland.
The tournament takes place across nine weeks in the summer and includes teams with Algerian, Zimbabwean, Ghanaian, Polish and Belfast backgrounds.
Working with EMSONI, he encourages people of all ages and backgrounds to play sport – whether that is through the day-to-day operations of booking pitches, organising taster sessions for women’s swimming, organising cricket taster sessions, handball or badminton.
“The attitude of helping society has always been part of me,” said the father of three.
“My purpose here in Northern Ireland through sport is to help my community to break barriers to sport participation, and to see how we can address racial inequalities in sport.
“It is important that we use sport in moving society forward. Sport has a lot to do in terms of changing society for better.”
In 2019, Adekanmi organised the first Ethnic Minority Sports Leadership Summit and was appointed to the board of the Northern Ireland Sport and Human Rights Forum.
