A Rwandan man who was adopted by a Barnsley couple when he was nine has returned to Africa for the first time to work with underprivileged children.
Clem Ford, who doesn’t know if his natural parents are still alive, was rescued by Fred and Susan Ford after growing up amidst war and violence in the 1990s.
The 26-year-old, who is a sports coach for the Barnsley Football Club Community Sport and Education Trust, returned to the continent of birth to hold football coaching sessions and to distribute kits.
“It was quite emotional being back in Africa after all these years,” he said. “My adopted parents are British, and I’m now British, and I was one of the lucky ones who got away as a kid.
“When I got into my 20s I began to wonder about my childhood, I have blanked much of it out of my head as the civil war in Rwanda was horrendous and people were being killed. But I began to ask questions and knew that I needed to go back to Africa.”
Clem, of Dodworth Road, Barnsley, went on a tour of East Africa. He visited his home nation before travelling to Ntungamo in Uganda which is where he started the football coaching programme. He hopes to take a team of coaches from Barnsley Football Club next year to expand the project.
