As the World Cup Begins, Mercy Corps Increases HIV/AIDS Awareness Through Soccer
From biz.yahoo.com
PORTLAND, Ore., May 17 /PRNewswire/ — As players and fans eagerly anticipate the opening whistle of the 2006 World Cup, children in Africa are stepping onto the soccer field to learn about HIV/AIDS.
The international humanitarian agency Mercy Corps is using the drawing power of the world’s most popular sport to reach young people with important messages about Africa’s most threatening disease.
The spread of AIDS threatens to derail efforts to improve food security, fight poverty and stimulate economic growth in developing countries where Mercy Corps works. Mercy Corps’ HIV/AIDS education programs currently reach 265,000 worldwide.
In Liberia, a tiny West African country ravaged by civil war and poverty, young people are largely uninformed about HIV/AIDS. Mercy Corps’ “YES to Soccer” program is based on a curriculum designed by Grassroot Soccer that combines young people’s passion for the sport with participatory games, role plays and discussions about HIV/AIDS. Currently, 3,000 Liberians between the ages of 16 and 30 participate in the program.
“The idea behind ‘YES to Soccer’ is to use role models who young people trust — like soccer players and coaches — to confirm what they’re hearing about AIDS and integrate it into their behavior,” says Jessica Quarles, Mercy Corps HIV/AIDS program officer.
Victoria Nayou is one of 32 participants in Tojilallah village, located in a rugged, remote county near the border of Cote d’Ivoire. Most of the residents live in mud homes roofed with palm fronds or corrugated zinc and survive on food rations from the UN’s World Food Program.
“Before participating in YES to Soccer I thought I could get HIV from eating food or shaking hands with an HIV-positive person,” explains Victoria, a 24-year-old mother of two. “Now I know that this is not true, and that you can only get HIV from having unprotected sex with someone who is HIV-positive or sharing blood.”
Because of the program, Victoria now knows that one of best ways to protect herself from HIV is to use a condom. On a recent trip to Cote d’Ivoire, where she sought refuge during part of Liberia’s 14-year civil war, she purchased hundreds of condoms to distribute in her community.
Mercy Corps is organizing soccer tournaments to reinforce the HIV information participants have learned and to provide communities an opportunity to share the skills they have gained. Mercy Corps pays for transportation to the tournaments, which include both men’s and women’s games as well as theatrical dramas about HIV/AIDS.
In Central Asia, Soccer Unites
Africa is only one place where Mercy Corps leverages the popularity of the world’s favorite sport to build stronger communities. In Central Asia’s Ferghana Valley, a poor and densely populated region that spans the borders of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, Mercy Corps uses soccer to defuse ethnic tensions.
In Kyrgyzstan, for instance, a former Soviet republic with a volatile mix of poverty and ethnic tensions, the agency sponsored three soccer leagues involving more than 350 youth of different ethnicities. Mercy Corps also trained two dozen coaches to incorporate tolerance, sportsmanship and healthy lifestyles into practices and games.
Mercy Corps looks forward to expanding its partnerships with Grassroot Soccer and Nike, which provides clothing, shoes and other gear to the agency’s soccer programs in Africa and Central Asia.
Mercy Corps works amid disasters, conflicts, chronic poverty and instability to unleash the potential of people who can win against impossible odds. Since 1979, Mercy Corps has provided $1 billion in assistance to people in 82 nations. Supported by headquarters offices in North America, Europe, and Asia, the agency’s unified global programs employ 2,700 staff worldwide and reach nearly 10 million people in more than 40 countries. Over the last five years, more than 90 percent of the agency’s resources have been allocated directly to programs that help people in need. For more information, visit www.mercycorps.org.