The calm after the storm, Part 3

Practice 3

Last Thursday (as noted in a previous blog) we were part of the GRS Coaches’ development session. A weekly event that brings together all the coaches in the site, helping them improve their delivery of the all important Skillz curriculum. Grassroot Soccer is commited to excellent delivery of this very important prevention strategy amojng youths in its flagship sites (mainly based in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Zambia). We, the interns were given a fast track look into the sessions (we got to see 7 out of the 9 done in 2 days last week), which helped give us an idea of what the program is about.

N.B. Out of respect of the coaches I have not included their names in any of these posts.

Practice 3 was done by O., it is known as “Find the Ball.” As one of the first Practices, it is important to set the tone for the rest of the curriculum and make sure basic facts about HIV/AIDS are understood by the participants. The objectives of this game include: stressing that you cannot tell by looking at someone that they are HIV-positive; helping participants locate testing services in their community and talking about the benefits and challenges of testing for HIV.

Participants are asked to form 2 teams (possibly more, depending on numbers) with each team’s members standing shoulder to shoulder with their hands behind their back (similar to a wall used to defend free-kicks in football matches) . The teams then face each other and the coach introduces 2 tennis balls, each ball representing a person who is HIV positive. The coach gives each team a ball, and members pass the ball between each other until he yells “STOP.” At this point the other team guesses who has the ball, and should they guess right they get a point. This process goes on back and forth for 15 or so minutes. In the initial round, the kids are simply playing the game, with the tennis balls holding no particular significance. After that initial round, the coach stresses the point that the kids will pretend that the ball actually represents an HIV positive individual.

Results invariably varied, and in our case no one guessed right as several volunteers demonstrated the game to the rest of the coaches at O.’s instruction. The coach then leads a discussion seeking to emphasize the point that anyone can have the HIV virus and physical appearance can never be a way to determine their status.

O. went on to lead a discussion on myths that exists concerning HIV and AIDS. This tests the general knowledge of the audience about the disease and the coach may need to provide guidance by highlighting key myths.

The key message from this discussion on myths would be that individuals can only truly know their status if they get tested. This could be one’s local hospital, clinic and HIV Counseling and Testing centers (HCTs). The coach needs to help the kids understand what testing resources exist in their own communities, and why it is important to get tested. O. made this point by leading the discussion on these very issues.

Every Skillz session involves homework, which is known as a Micro move, for this Practice it is for the kids to visit a local HCT or clinic and bring back an information pamphlet. This keeps kids invested in Skillz in their daily lives outside of the sessions, another good learning tool.

An example of find the Ball (demonstration by none other than Sir Elton John, on his 63rd birthday spent with GRS in March of this year):

Part 1

Part 2