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HIV/AIDS Awareness Football Coaching Project - Uganda 2007

Five volunteer football coaches from across the UK spent the month of January delivering HIV/AIDS awareness messages through football coaching to the players at the All Stars Academy in Kamwokya. The TackleAfrica coaches were hosted by Kamwokya Christian Caring in the Community (KCCC), based in a slum area of Kampala. They worked closely with the KCCC peer educators and the All Stars Academy coaches, reaching around 100 players per day at the soccer clinic run by the academy throughout the school holidays.

The projects involve volunteer coaches from across the UK delivering HIV and AIDS awareness messages through football coaching to the players at the All Stars Academy in Kamwokya.. The coaches work closely with the KCCC peer educators and the All Stars Academy coaches, reaching around 100 players per day at the soccer clinic run by the academy throughout the school holiday.

The volunteers have also worked in partnership with F.U.F.A. (Federation of Uganda Football Association), providing a coaching manual to over 50 coaches from across Uganda including the first 25 female coaches in East Africa, developing a nationally recognised coaching scheme, the first of its kind in Uganda to be themed around HIV awareness, as well as coaching programme specifically for young women.

The aims of the project were:

  • To use football to deliver HIV/AIDS education and awareness to highly at risk young people from Kamwokya and beyond
  • To deliver good quality football coaching to Academy members
  • To deliver training to local coaches in partnership with the Federation of Uganda Football Association (FUFA) in the delivery of HIV and AIDS messages through football drills
  • To enable community coaches to deliver TackleAfrica's HIV awareness drills to many areas in Uganda allowing young people access to important health messages and quality football coaching. To date additional coaching has taken place in Entebe, Bomba, Luerwo and Masind

On his return to the UK, volunteer coach Graeme Sears commented:

"The coaching drills we used were very popular and were a really good way of conveying important health messages and getting the players involved in the fight against HIV.

The kids attending the clinic have embraced the concept, by the end of the first week we had several players coming to us with their own ideas for HIV/AIDS coaching drills."

The peer educators from KCCC said:

"Young people normally get this information from teachers but integration of HIV/AIDS awareness in football drills is tantamount to comprehensive knowledge about HIV/AIDS and behaviour change."

Before this project it was hard to get footballers to such awareness programmes...most footballers think that such diseases don't affect them being powerful and strong."

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