The St Francis Youth Project is an organisation
that helps young people in Kisumu to change the way they live their lives.
Kisumu is part of the Nyanza province which has the largest HIV rate in Kenya. The
project is separated in to 3 departments; Prevention, Nutrition and Aftercare.
It is managed by a man called Julius Misore who oversees the development of
each department. We found out about their work because Tackle Africa have been
involved with St Francis for a few years as they have been using the coaching
manual to educate local football teams about the dangers of HIV and how to
prevent it.
We went there to film the work being done and to
interview the people involved. We were mainly looked after by Julius Malala who
is in charge of the prevention department. He works with a variety of schools,
local football clubs and youth clubs to engage young people about HIV education.
We got to film a local school using Tackle Africa’s coaching manual to teach
their students about HIV. They told us that teenage pregnancy had dropped to 0%
since the manual had been used! It was also clear that the students were not
only really enjoying the football but also understanding the HIV messages the
football drills were designed for. We interviewed the deputy headmaster, who
was actively involved in the coaching, and he told us about how the manual had
been integrated in to the school system.
We then interviewed the female sports teacher who had originally been trained by Tackle Africa earlier this year. She enthusiastically told us about how effective the manual had been and also spoke about how she wanted to see the manual evolve in the future (they are not allowed to talk to the children about safe sex, so the message is about abstaining).
We then got to film a local football club using Tackle Africa drills as part of their training programme and interviewed a local coach about how he felt the drills were helping his team, both in terms of football skills and also education about HIV. We also played football against his team (twice – match reports attached later) and gave them a bag of our footballs donated by Alive and Kicking.
It was another case of not being there long enough to fully appreciate the scale of the work being done by the project but we are certainly thankful to St Francis for showcasing as much as they could. It was great to see once again how football is being used to engage young people and how it is helping to educate them in changing their lives.
Andy
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