DaimlerChrysler supports soccer-HIV project
From africanews.com
by Fidelis Zvomuya
As the FIFA Soccer Wold Cup approaches, DaimlerChrysler Group’s business unit Mercedes Benz Vans has started assisting in the development of teenagers through a financial, technical and material support to Grassroot Soccer (GRS).
The company is providing new Sprinter vans to the organisation to be used by new street soccer projects in the Western Cape and Gauteng, to ferry children to soccer games and a variety of outreach events.
The Grassroot Soccer project was founded in 2002 by two German retired soccer players Kirk Friedrich and Ethan Zohn to use local models in Africa to educate younger boys and girls about HIV/Aids through the use of football.
It trains African soccer stars, coaches and peer educators to deliver an interactive life skills curriculum focused on HIV prevention to youth.
It is set to reach more than 1,5 million kids throughout the African continent by the end of 2008.
Friedrich says in South Africa following a successful design and implementation of the DeBeers Pilot Project in the Northern Cape in 2006, Grassroot Soccer has so far launched several community based football for development programmes across the country.
“As 2010 FIFA World Cup approaches, our organisation and other partners aim to provide comprehensive, activity based HIV/Aids and life skills education to young South Africans and the continent in general,” he said.
2010 offers a unique opportunity for sport-for-development organisations to highlight the power of soccer as an educational tool and raise the world’ awareness of the global HIV/Aids epidemic, Friedrich noted.
With its proven success using soccer as a tool for social development, the organisation has become a member of the Streetfootballworld Network a strong contributor to the ‘Football for Hope’ movement.
Port Elizabeth was selected as the country’s Grassroot Soccer’s flagship site due to its strong local partnership with a local organisation The Ubuntu Education Fund, as well as the city’s high HIV infection rates and the large number of under serviced youth in the metropolitan area.
“We launched a Youth Football Programme at Dora Nginza Hospital in Zwide, being run in conjunction with the hospital’s Paediatric Aids Treatment programme. Session combine football instruction with our organisation’s HIV/Aids education and stigma reduction programme for infected and affected children in the surrounding communities, Zohn said.
Zohn says the idea is not to use big names in the programme, but to use sports heroes from within children’s communities, to show what can be achieved and to develop young leaders.