Kofi Kingston Provides Update On His CLICK Foundation To Help Schools in Ghana

Kofi Kingston is behind a project known as the CLICK Foundation to help junior high schools in Ghana, and he recently gave an update on the foundation.
Kingston spoke with Fightful about the project. You can check out some excerpts below, plus the GoFundMe for the project here:

On the organization and its purpose: “Yeah, CLICK. So this is a foundation that my mom and I started. The acronym CLICK stands for Computer Labs & Integrated Centers of Knowledge. Essentially we’re trying to bring computers labs and libraries to kids in Ghana in middle school areas, especially in deprived areas ‘cause we just don’t have that over there. In this day and age, it’s so important to have a sense of media literacy. Technology is so prevalent in everything that we do in this day and age. So I think that we take for granted—especially in America, and all over the world—the opportunities that we have. I can pick up my cell phone right now and type a question into my search bar and get the information. Meanwhile, there are kids In Ghana who have not ever been to a library and have not ever had computers to use at the tip of their fingers.

“So one of the stories that I told on social media and that my mom told me was how there are some teachers who will be trying to explain to their students exactly what a computer is and what it does, and since they don’t have the resources to do that, they take a rock or draw in the dirt and they’ll say, ‘Hey, this rock is a mouse, and when you move the mouse, there’s an arrow on the screen,’ and they’re drawing the screen. So even me describing that to you, you can’t possibly conceptualize exactly what it is. Especially to somebody who has never even heard of what a computer is or what it does. So we want to be able to provide a sense of media literacy to these kids, so that they can have an equal footing when they go out into the world and try to accomplish great things. We just want to put them on equal playing field to go out and be successful, like they should be.”

On the progress of the CLICK Center: “Yeah, thanks, man. It’s something where you read books and it can take you to all over the world. You’re able to use your imagination and open up opportunities and possibilities just by giving you information. It can set your passions, set goals for yourself, set dreams for you to go out and accomplish just by reading different stories and how other people did things. It sparks that interest and you want to be able to do that, create a hunger for knowledge with these kids. That’s what we’re trying to do, man. We have a GoFundMe that we’re trying to raise funds in order to get the actual computers. Which is at www.GoFundMe.com/ClickFQE. Like I said, man, we’ve done a lot. We started this foundation in 2020 and we’ve already gotten the building all set-up. We’ve gotten a lot of the furniture. We’ve gotten a lot of the artwork on the walls. But there’s still a lot of things we actually need to just finish it up and makes sure this gets up and running because this is gonna be, hopefully, the first of many CLICK Centers all over Ghana. Right now the one we’re building is going to be a central location for a total of about five different junior high schools. So the entire community will be able to go to this CLICK Center and work on their media literacy and read books and really reap the benefits of education. So hopefully this will be the first of many. This one, once it goes well, it will be a good prototype.”

On his mother’s involvement in the project: “She is. Yes. PHD from Harvard, yeah. Anthropology, man. The crazy thing, when I was a kid, I didn’t really understand how big a deal it was for her to have this PHD because she was doing all of that while she had three kids, you know? There was a point in time where she went to Ghana for a year. So her PHD is in anthropology. You have to go do field work. So she went to Ghana for a year and that was in 1996, I believe, and then I went back to Ghana for the summer. So that’s when I got to go back there and really meet all my aunts and uncles and cousins and nieces and nephews and all that. Well, at the time I didn’t have nieces and nephews, but, you know, my family. Being able to meet everybody. We have such a big family. I didn’t know anybody and it wasn’t until I went to Ghana and I was like, ‘Oh, my God. My family is huge.’ That was a great opportunity. Then, of course, going back 26 years later as WWE Champion was amazing as well. Yeah, man. I think we have a responsibility just to give back and pay forward or help people when we have an opportunity to do so. So that’s what we’re trying to do with this project.”