Playing the field
Football in the UK seems to be dominated by WAGs, bling, Cristal and cash. Elsewhere in the world football, and other sports, are combining activities with HIV education and - quite literally - saving lives.
You can accomplish a lot through sports. You can bring people together you can give them a break from hard times; and you can teach them things they may never forget.
In certain countries in southern Africa, if you take any given 15-year-old child at random, there is an 80 per cent chance that he or she will die of AIDS. There’s a lot of reasons – social and biological reasons – why young people are particularly at risk from HIV and AIDS.
Kids are still kids, though. For all the horrifying stats in the world, most of them would rather play football than go to sexual health classes.
Wouldn’t you?
Not to mention that fact that most 15-year-olds in Africa don’t fully understand what AIDS is, or how you get it.
In certain countries in southern Africa, if you take any given 15-year-old child at random, there is an 80 per cent chance that he or she will die of AIDS. There’s a lot of reasons – social and biological reasons – why young people are particularly at risk from HIV and AIDS.
Kids are still kids, though. For all the horrifying stats in the world, most of them would rather play football than go to sexual health classes.
Wouldn’t you?
Not to mention that fact that most 15-year-olds in Africa don’t fully understand what AIDS is, or how you get it.
Sport and the message
Christian Aid works with a partners all round the world who are using sports to fight against HIV and AIDS. You don’t have to be good to enjoy sport. Almost anyone can take part, and almost anyone can watch. Most young people want to get involved. Combine sport with a message, and you’re on to a winner.
In Zambia, the Copperbelt Health Education Project (CHEP) runs a programme called 'Games for life'. It’s HIV education for children and young people. They play sports and games – football, netball, volleyball, and badminton – and organise leagues and tournaments. The organisers and refs are peer educators, and when the whistle blows to interrupt the games, volunteers tell the young players how to protect themselves from HIV.
Simple, really. But that one piece of knowledge picked up at a football game could be the saving of a young player’s life.
Similar things are going on in Bo, Sierra Leone where the local youth centre runs the Bo nations cup.
Sierra Leone is rebuilding after a horrifically violent civil war that saw thousands and thousands of young children forced to fight as soldiers and kill one another. The Cup is a football tournament that takes place every year. When it first started at the end of the war it included teams from Bo town, nearby refugee camps, and the local army.
The tournament helped people to come together in something approaching normal circumstances, trying to rebuild trust and bury the memory of violence.
Today it continues promoting peace but also takes on the threat of HIV – something that was forgotten, to great cost, during the war.
At half-times in the games, volunteers perform dramas and role-plays that teach the players and supporters how to protect themselves from HIV. They’re careful not to leave out the crowds – there are schemes to involve supporters, so everyone gets the benefit of the health messages.
In Zambia, the Copperbelt Health Education Project (CHEP) runs a programme called 'Games for life'. It’s HIV education for children and young people. They play sports and games – football, netball, volleyball, and badminton – and organise leagues and tournaments. The organisers and refs are peer educators, and when the whistle blows to interrupt the games, volunteers tell the young players how to protect themselves from HIV.
Simple, really. But that one piece of knowledge picked up at a football game could be the saving of a young player’s life.
Similar things are going on in Bo, Sierra Leone where the local youth centre runs the Bo nations cup.
Sierra Leone is rebuilding after a horrifically violent civil war that saw thousands and thousands of young children forced to fight as soldiers and kill one another. The Cup is a football tournament that takes place every year. When it first started at the end of the war it included teams from Bo town, nearby refugee camps, and the local army.
The tournament helped people to come together in something approaching normal circumstances, trying to rebuild trust and bury the memory of violence.
Today it continues promoting peace but also takes on the threat of HIV – something that was forgotten, to great cost, during the war.
At half-times in the games, volunteers perform dramas and role-plays that teach the players and supporters how to protect themselves from HIV. They’re careful not to leave out the crowds – there are schemes to involve supporters, so everyone gets the benefit of the health messages.
'In Sierra Leone it is stigma that kills you, not HIV'
A similar volleyball tournament is targeted more specifically at girls. That one has a more specific focus on empowerment – saying 'No' to sex and negotiating safe sex. Girls are especially at risk of HIV in Sierra Leone, as in other places, because they often aren’t in a position to make sexual decisions. They haven’t got the power to say no.
After that comes Run away from HIV a 12 mile marathon around the town. Comedians line the streets grabbing people’s attention while they watch the runners; young volunteers on megaphones tell people about HIV.
Junisa Samura is the sports coach responsible for the games.
'Why Run away from HIV? Because Aids is here. People do not believe that HIV exists. Our Games for Life tell people about HIV and that it is here. In Sierra Leone it is stigma that kills you, not HIV.'
After that comes Run away from HIV a 12 mile marathon around the town. Comedians line the streets grabbing people’s attention while they watch the runners; young volunteers on megaphones tell people about HIV.
Junisa Samura is the sports coach responsible for the games.
'Why Run away from HIV? Because Aids is here. People do not believe that HIV exists. Our Games for Life tell people about HIV and that it is here. In Sierra Leone it is stigma that kills you, not HIV.'
Not just developing nations
There are programmes like these in place all around the world – from Jamaica to Ghana to Uganda to the Democratic Republic of Congo to here in the UK, where Christian Aid is using football-related resources to teach British school kids about development issues and Christian Aid’s work. Linked with the national curriculum, these exercises tackle global issues like poverty, child labour and trade justice.
That’s the beauty of sport; It’s inclusive, and most sports, if you strip them down the basics, are fairly inexpensive. Well perhaps not Formula One. But is that a sport? The debate rumbles…
That’s the beauty of sport; It’s inclusive, and most sports, if you strip them down the basics, are fairly inexpensive. Well perhaps not Formula One. But is that a sport? The debate rumbles…
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