Skillz Street in review

Skillz Street (pictures here) came to Port Elizabeth on November 15^th 2010 as a pilot intervention for girls on the back of research that points to health benefits from participation in recreational sport and the need to reach young girls who are disproportionately affected by HIV. I was delighted to be part of the team that set up a relationship with the Red location museum, an important cultural centre in Port Elizabeth in the heart of the Red location area of New Brighton. The Intervention happened over an intensive 3 week period where we met 3 times a week with the girls.

Recruiting was done in surrounding schools and on Day 1 we got over a hundred kids and the sessions following saw numbers fluctuate around the 90 mark. I personally learned a lot during this time, having never been part of anything like this. The idea was to test a curriculum in its development stage and send feedback to the Curriculum development team. 

The pillars of Skillz Street are HIV prevention & Life Skills education (taking most of its content from our established curricula), Community Outreach and Fair Play Soccer. 

Fluctuating attendance was a major challenge for us. At any given practice we had at least 80 to 100 girls, but the thing is there would be new kids at almost every one of them, with the new girls replacing the ones who had chosen not to come. Overall 154 girls participated in the intervention for at least two out of the 9 practices. In order for a participant to graduate in any of our interventions they must complete at least 6 practices, 84 girls did so and the rest attended several practices but not enough to graduate. As noted in Skillz holiday below the timing of the intervention coinciding with the end of year holidays is likely to be a major reason why some girls could not complete the required number of practices. Most of the girls live in the surrounding communities, but for a certain few the distance became an issue and they stopped attending. 

It was a pleasure to see the level of enthusiasm that the girls had for activities, discussions and Fairplay soccer. In the end I think we came out with a solid amount of feedback and I look forward to the establishment of Skillz Street alongside other GRS curricula.

At every session/practice we had there was always a group of 15 to 20 odd boys on the sidelines watching the girls play and participate in activities. It felt a bit weird to have excluded them but I understand the need to reach out to girls who frankly do not get as many opportunities to for example play football socially after school. One of our coaches suggested that we do Skillz Street for boys, but perhaps this would defeat the purpose of what we are doing? A tricky questions because in whatever issues, problems or life dilemma young girls may face, there is another side to it, and perhaps bringing boys in would not be such a bad idea? Perhaps not, maybe the emphasis could be placed on separating the sexes but dealing with the hot topics affecting both sides and the kids would equally be more comfortable in a setting where the other sex is not present. Things to think about and suggestions/discussions I will be bringing forward in the new year.

 

Unfortunately we were not able to fully fulfill the community service component of the intervention in the way we would have liked to. The idea was to get the girls involved in some sort of community service or get familiar with a facility in the community. Because we were stretched to the max as an office, we never took the time to really look into what community agents were available, this is something I hope to get done properly at the next Skillz STreet whih will hopefully happen again in February.  

These are exciting times at Grassroot Soccer and within the AIDS response movement. Progress is tangible and the momentum needs to be maintained!