Igali wrestles his dream into reality: school readies for opening day

October 7 2005

SFU criminology student and Olympic wrestler Daniel Igali of Surrey has Canada to thank for helping make his boyhood dream come true.
He talked to Langley Rotarians October 6 about his Nigerian school.

When Daniel Igali first looked closely at his Olympic gold medal, the faces of the village children reflected back into his mind’s eye. When he bit into the gold medal as the cameras flashed that day of the 2000 Sydney Olympics, he knew for certain it was the bite of the reality that he dreamed of as a 12-year-old Nigerian boy.

And when Igali danced around the flag of Canada and bent to kiss the maple leaf, he was celebrating the opportunities he had won on the wrestling mat. Not for rich sponsorship contracts. Not for endorsements. But for a chance to use his name and his powers of persuasion to build a proper school in Eniwari, his Nigerian village.

And now, the school of his dreams is built and slated to open in the new year.

Begun in 2002 when the Governor of Bayelsa State cut the sod in the presence of townsfolk and two students Igali brought from Canada, the $450,000 complex now sits against a backdrop of bush and forest at the edge of town. The State government has promised $50,000 in sustainable funding.

Igali travelled to his village in August, 2005 and was pleased with what he saw.

“It’s really coming along,” he says happily. “But I’ve got to go back there in November for six or seven weeks to make sure it’s ready for students in the new year. Then we can plan a grand opening later in 2006.”

Rising high above the school is a 350,000 litre capacity water tank serving a new $20,000 well, the gift of North Vancouver’s Ella Warrington and Ontario’s young Ryan Hreljac of Ryan’s Water Wells project as featured on Oprah. It’s the only source of clean drinking water for miles around.

Now there are 11 classrooms for kids mostly from the Bomo clan, who can attend both elementary and secondary grades and work towards graduation. The gym will have a wrestling mat, of course, and Igali is trying to score one from a benevolent donor. The library, while built, is void of books. And that’s a concern to Igali because he wants potential donors to know that the library and textbooks required must be “appropriate.”

“We can’t just fill it full of books,” Igali says. “I’ll have to explain what is needed to anyone who is interested in donating books.”

Computers are another item on his laundry list of goods and equipment needed before the school can open. The computer lab is designed for 45 units, but he is open to having more. There is no nearby power source and so Igali expects that solar energy, perhaps combined with wind and a gas powered generator, will provide the juice needed for computers with the Internet, and for lighting for the school, the administration block and the teacherage.

“It rains a lot in my village,” Igali notes, and so some attention will have to be paid to the availability of natural sources of energy. Desks and writing boards are also required, and Igali thinks the locals will want to make the sign for the school.

“It will be named the Maureen Matheny Academy,” he says firmly. The late Matheny of Richmond, BC was Igali’s friend, mentor and surrogate mother as he pursued Olympic gold, dying of cancer shortly after she learned he had won the 1999 World Championship.

“I want the Academy to be different in many ways from the school I attended,” Igali says. “When I was a kid there was no opportunity to join sports programs.” And even at age 16 when he was selected to go into a wrestling program at a sports institute in Nigeria he was forced to quit his studies to train and compete for two years.

“That is why I was so happy to find that I could do both in Canada,” Igali says. Beginning at Douglas College where he studied and competed for BC, he won a three-year scholarship to SFU, which led to the Olympic gold. He becomes reflective when he thinks of the late Paul Nemeth, who was a retired BC wrestling coach when Igali won the scholarship in his name.

“He gave my project a cheque for $50,000,” Igali says. “That was huge.”

Also instrumental in the success of the school project was its sponsor Canadian University Services Overseas (CUSO). Then came the In Sync video documentary “Sweatin’ It” that raised the project’s profile, as did young filmmaker Joel Gordon’s Omni Films production, “Wrestling with Destiny.” General Mills put Igali on the back of Cheerios cereal boxes and contributed $10,000 and the Royal Bank wrote a cheque for $8,000.

“SFU continues to canvass Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) for resources,” Igali notes. SFU raised over $50,000 at a dinner, Bell Canada donated $30,000, CAW in Ontario gave $25,000 and Gordon Graydon Secondary School in Toronto raised $10,000, while many other schools followed suit. Private donations, large and small, make up the remainder.

SFU Chancellor Milton Wong spearheaded SFU’s role in the school project. Nello Angerilli and Canadian ambassador to several African countries John Bell, arranged a partnership with the SFU International Education branch.

“It’s good, it’s all good,” Igali says with satisfaction. “Canadians came around and came together and made it happen, made it work. Now we must finish it and ensure that it becomes self-sustaining. Then there’s more work to be done…and in more communities too.”

Perhaps it’s that work ethic, that ability to espouse a dream and then realize it, that is Igali’s greatest gift. But he’ll tell you that his greatest satisfaction comes in the sharing of that gift.
by Karen Kersey