Source: Sowetan
On a sports field in Alexandra township, over 100 excited children laugh and shout as they sing, play games, and kick around footballs. But it’s not all fun and games. As part of Football for Hope, a collaboration between FIFA and global NGO streetfootball world, the programme has a very specific goal in mind – to use soccer as a vehicle to teach children about the dangers of HIV/AIDS.
Some 32 organisations from around the world — the same number of nations as in the World Cup — have been chosen to take part, based not on their football prowess but on the success of projects to address social issues like homelessness in London, landmines in Cambodia, gang violence in Colombia and South Africa’s scourge of AIDS.
The sprawling Johannesburg township of Alexandra belongs to one of its members, Play Soccer, which trains hundreds of children twice a week.
Play Soccer’s South Africa director, Sibu Sibaka said “These kids will play soccer until there is no light on the streets and we figure let’s provide a safe environment for them to do exactly that but teach them a thing or two in the process that will help them for life,”
Football for Hope was birthed out of a partnership between FIFA and a global NGO called streetfootballworld. The children from Alexandra, mentioned above, belong to one of Football for Hope’s member organisations namely Play Soccer, which trains hundreds of children in the community twice a week.
“The idea is to show the power of soccer to achieve social change, while the eyes of the world are on South Africa,” said Football for Hope Communications Manager Mike Geddes. He further said that Alexandra had been chosen as festival hosts partly to counter the bad reputation it adopted last year when the township suffered a wave of xenophobic attacks.
In an attempt to level the very uneven playing field, the boys and girls range from tiny tots in oversized shorts to hefty teenagers, but they all belong to one of the many projects all over the world that is using the huge power of football to help underprivileged children overcome social problems.
One of the games played in the programme is called Risk Field. Children dribble between cones representing risks like unsafe sex or multiple partners. If a player hits a cone he or she has to do press ups and if it happens again the whole team has to join in.
“This teaches them that their actions have consequences not just for them but for other people. Using these games really brings it alive for these children and makes the education messages that much stronger,” Geddes said.
While on a break from soccer drills, 12 year old Itumeleng Tsotetsi said that “If you don’t play sports, what future will you have? If you don’t play sports you will kill people and steal,”
Everybody is aware of the benefits of getting young people off the mean streets of Alexandra, in a country with one of the world’s highest rates of murder and rape.
Play Soccer is financed by various donors, including private companies, UNICEF and the German aid organisation GTZ.
The Football for Hope festival will take place in the second half of the month-long World Cup, which starts next June 11, in a 3,000-seat stadium yet to be built next to this sports field.