The Drum Beat 511 - Sports for Change
This issue includes:
- Sports and stars: Awareness and ADVOCACY.
- Links to RELATED e-newsletters.
- Engaging YOUTH in sports for health.
- Please tell us your CI STORIES!
- Sports for integration and EQUITY.
- Vote in a POLL on marginalised girls.
This issue of The Drum Beat focuses on the strategy of using sports - athletic experiences, events, and stars - as a communication platform to spark social change around the world. Many feature efforts to capitalise on the worldwide football ("soccer") focus surrounding the 2010 World Cup, slated to be held in South Africa by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA).
SPORTS AND STARS: HEALTH ADVOCACY
1. Can Tru Love Withstand the Test - Africa
Produced by the African Broadcast Media Partnership Against HIV/AIDS (ABMP) as part of the "It begins with YOU" campaign, this radio mini-drama series includes themes related to the 2010 World Cup. The 2-minute episodes feature issues young adults deal with in their day-to-day lives, with a focus on respectful relationships, gender equity, stigma, open communication about HIV/AIDS, reducing HIV risk, and promoting HIV testing. The campaign is part of a pan-African HIV/AIDS education and information media initiative using the tagline "Football for an HIV-Free Generation".
Contact: contactus@broadcasthivafrica.org
2. Youth Agents of Change to Stop Tuberculosis - Latin America
The Stop TB Partnership and the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB)'s Youth Program "BID Juventud" worked with footballer Luis Figo and MTV to create a special report, a public service announcement (PSA), and a comic book to inspire young Latin Americans to join in the global fight against tuberculosis (TB). On July 1 2009, MTV Latin America launched a 5-minute special report featuring an interview with Figo, who discusses his role as an Ambassador of the Stop TB Partnership.
Contact: Judith Mandelbaum-Schmid schmidj@who.int OR Fabián Koss FABIANK@iadb.org OR bidjuventud@iadb.org OR Marimar Rive marimar.rive@mtvstaff.com OR Guillermo Reyna guillermo.reyna@mtvstaff.com OR Claudia Castagnola ccastagnola@123.cl OR Axel Escudero axel.escudero@mtvstaff.com
3. Rotary International's Anniversary/Polio Awareness Week 2009 - Global
Reaffirming its pledge to eradicate polio on the occasion of its 104th anniversary in early 2009, Rotary International clubs strove to raise polio awareness through an Indian cycle rally in which participants donned "Rotary - End Polio Now" jerseys and caps. On their 300 km ride, they distributed 25,000 leaflets at schools, colleges, hospitals, shopping malls, etc. The local media covered the event. And Rotarians participating in the Mumbai Marathon 2009 wore tee-shirts displaying polio messages.
Contact: ppindia@del2.vsnl.net.in
4. Football to Promote Health and Social Responsibility within Communities - Malawi
In this campaign, which kicked off with a football match and HIV/AIDS awareness event that drew 30,000 fans, FIFA, the Football Association of Malawi (FAM), and the BBC World Service Trust (WST) used Malawi's passion for football to encourage health awareness and social responsibility within communities, and to promote football as a tool for change. A youth choir from an AIDS orphanage sang songs about HIV and AIDS, and players declared in English and Chichewa: "I pledge to use my own celebrity status in a positive way in the fight against HIV and AIDS in Malawi". The non-governmental organisation (NGO) Kicking AIDS Out demonstrated HIV and AIDS awareness games at the national stadium, holding a banner that read, "A friend with HIV is still a friend." In addition, 27 BBC WST-trained radio journalists produced a daily interactive magazine programme on the role of football in Malawi's development.
Contact: BBC WST website.
5. Footballers vs. Malaria - Africa
This public information campaign involves 12 international football stars with African origins and uses PSAs on the internet and other multimedia tools in different languages to urge immediate malaria protection for young children and pregnant women. The announcements give the footballers' personal testimony about suffering from malaria and are interspersed with footage from professional football matches. Available free of charge for unlimited television and radio broadcast all over Africa, each clip includes an 8-second space at the end for the addition of local messages about campaigns related to malaria prevention. "Sport, music and the engagement of the youth are critical to creating cultural change and addressing serious issues like malaria in developing countries," according to the Director of the United Nations' New York Office of Sport for Development and Peace.
Contact: Prudence Smith smithp@who.int
6. Leve-toi, Afrique! (Wake Up Africa!) - Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Togo
This entertainment-education initiative centres around a song calling on Africans to wake up and take responsibility to protect themselves against HIV/AIDS. The behaviour change communication (BCC) division of Santé Familiale et Prévention du SIDA (SFPS) worked with Artistes Contre Le Sida (ACS) to produce the song for the campaign, which included a music video, 7 TV and radio spots, and a "behind the scenes" magazine/documentary. Each spot addresses one of the Wake-Up! messages: promotion of condom use, mutual fidelity, the well-being of people living with AIDS (PLWA), and importance of HIV testing/knowing one's status. Reportedly, through broadcast during the All Africa Soccer Cup matches, hundreds of thousands of fans were exposed to the Wake-Up! spots.
Contact: webmaster@jhuccp.org OR Amelie Sow-Dia asow@jhuccp.org OR amsowdia@comcast.net
Please see these previously published, closely related e-newsletters:
The Drum Beat 335 - Playing for Change: Communication through Sport
The Soul Beat 128 - Sport and Development in Africa
ENGAGING YOUTH IN SPORTS FOR HEALTH
7. TackleAfrica - Africa, Central Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa, West Africa
The United Kingdom (UK)-based TackleAfrica believes that sport has potential to bring people together and provide a platform for communicating messages, mobilising communities to join the fight against HIV, enabling people to protect themselves properly, and challenging stigma and misconceptions. In a collaborative project with Kenya's Comprehensive Course on the Franciscan Mission Charism (CCFMC), TackleAfrica organised a tournament with a series of 9 build-up events followed by final matches between the winning teams. During these events, HIV/AIDS messages were passed on through printed T-shirts, caps, posters, and banners, as well as through guest speakers from local government. CCFMC activities also included: peer education activities; youth group and interschool competitions; monitoring treatment-seeking behaviour change; sharing information through football, songs, and poems; distributing information, education, and communication (IEC) materials; and promoting voluntary counselling and testing for HIV/AIDS.
Contact: info@tackleafrica.org
This report examines the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)'s "Drug Demand Reduction Program" (DDRP), which funds NGO endeavours to address social problems among vulnerable populations involved in or at risk of involvement in drug use in Central Asia. One example included in the document is that of Tajikistan's NGO Tashbbuskor, which in 2004 received a DDRP grant for construction of a sports field, as well as advocacy activities, a public awareness campaign, and DDR education. A former drug user - now a successful sports personality - participated in sessions on "Sports Against Drugs" designed to decrease stigma and discrimination. Community leaders, mahalla committee representatives, and religious leaders were invited to the trainings and provided input into discussions.
9. MYSA HIV/AIDS Prevention and Awareness Project - Kenya
The Mathare Youth Sports Association (MYSA) is promoting behavioural change among young members of the Mathare Valley community in Kenya. The project aims to integrate sport and life skills through peer education, peer counselling, games, music, drama, puppetry, and other cultural and recreational activities. According to MYSA, sports programmes can: be an effective tool for social mobilisation, supporting health activities such as HIV/AIDS education and immunisation campaigns; provide employment and contribute to local development; foster volunteer involvement, especially among youth; and encourage clean living and a healthy environment.
Contact: Peter Karanja pkaranja@mysakenya.org
10. Football for Hope - Global
FIFA and streetfootballworld are creating programmes around the world that use sport to enhance dialogue and collaboration. For example, Grassroot Soccer (GRS) mobilises the global football community in the fight against HIV/AIDS by training local role models (including professional football players) to deliver an interactive, football-themed behaviour development curriculum to young people, who are then empowered as peer educators to teach the community at large what they have learned. Running on a 4-year cycle to tie in with the FIFA Confederations Cup, the Football for Hope Forum brings practitioners and researchers together to discuss future paths and concrete solutions to challenges in the field of development through football. Also every 4 years, as an official event of the FIFA World Cup, the Football for Hope Festival brings together those committed to football for social change.
Contact: FIFA website.
Through CI Stories, we are seeking stories of how members of The CI Network have used The CI to support their work, connect with others in the network, and/or highlight their work with demonstrated positive impact on their organisation or work.
"I remember...way before we were on the air, and when we were still struggling to write a first script and get some money, I saw a very small thing somewhere, a one paragraph blurb, that talked about a TV thing in South Africa. I thought, here's somebody doing the same thing we're trying to do but they're already doing it! At the time, I was so busy that I didn't even write. I remember saving the message so that I would have the email address. I kept seeing it every week and I had it on my list every week to write to Soul City to find out who they were and what was going on.... The comminit web page is the best thing I have ever seen. It is incredibly useful and efficient. I can go exactly to what I need and get what I need from it, which is just incredibly useful for me where I am. Finding out more about Soul City from comminit has been really useful.” For full story, click here.
The above story was received from a CI network member on how they are using The CI to support and inform their work. To read additional CI Stories, click here.
If you have experiences or anecdotes on how we have made a difference to your work, please tell us your story! Click here. (NOTE: you must be a registered, logged in user to submit a story).
SPORTS: COMMUNICATING RESPECT
11. 1 GOAL: Education for All - Global
Officially launched by the football strand of the Class of 2015 and the Global Campaign for Education (GCE) on August 20 2009, 1 GOAL is a global movement to help ensure that every child can get an education. Footballers, FIFA officials, governments, and celebrities are inviting citizens to sign up on the 1 GOAL website to lend their voices to a collective plea to world leaders to keep their promise of giving everyone an education by 2015. Competitions and interviews involving the 2010 FIFA World Cup will be at the centre of the campaign, which was launched at Wembley Stadium in London, with Her Majesty Queen Rania of Jordan, international football stars, and GCE personnel in attendance. People were encouraged to follow the launch - and campaigning activities scheduled to take place in over 200 countries until the World Cup final - on 1 GOAL's Facebook wall and twitter feed.
Contact: info@campaignforeducation.org
12. Report on Sports for Peace Project, District Swat
This report explores the potential of sports activities as a tool for building resilience and helping people affected by disaster and displacement bridge divides and overcome trauma. It shows the positive effects of a sports-for-peace project initiated in Pakistan in September 2008 by the non-profit youth organisation Swat Youth Front (SYF). The report finds that SYF's cricket and volleyball tournaments afforded participants brief periods of relaxation, and focused attention away from the experience of loss and from the paralysed economy. In addition to fostering the emotional and social rehabilitation of a traumatised community, SYF's evaluation process revealed sports' contribution to increased interaction and communication, and enhanced ability to resolve conflicts cooperatively.
13. Fair Play Campaign - Global
In the late 1980s, FIFA created a programme to make the concept of fair play more concrete, more visible. The generic concept represents the positive benefits of playing by the rules, using common sense, and respecting fellow players, referees, opponents and fans. The FIFA Fair Play Code encapsulates the 10 core sporting, moral, and ethical principles to which FIFA is committed, reinforcing the sense of fraternity and cooperation among the members of the worldwide football family. The FIFA Fair Play Award is given to the team with the best record of fair play. FIFA Fair Play Day, begun in 1997, has taken place annually since (As of 2004, it takes place annually on September 21, the UN International Day of Peace). In dozens of countries around the world, local events and tournaments are designed to engage children and young people.
Contact: FIFA website.
14. Goals for Girls - China and Global
This campaign uses the power of sport and the appeal of football and the FIFA Women's World Cup 2007 as platforms for helping challenge gender discrimination and empowering women and girls. It was created by FIFA and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in recognition of the belief that "Sport can help girls and young women claim their place in society." The campaign promotes education for girls and child-friendly schools (CFS), a philosophy centring around emphasis on the needs of the whole child that encourages gender-sensitive learning by providing an intellectually challenging educational setting for both girls and boys. All campaign materials centre around 'Nu', a single Chinese language character signifying a female figure in motion - running, dancing, moving forward. The logo is prominent in UNICEF's Sport-in-a-Box kits, which contain footballs, basketballs, skipping ropes, and other equipment. A series of multilingual PSAs using FIFA tournament footage highlight the links between girls playing in their own communities and the stars who make it to the top, carrying the central message that through sport - and education - any girl can achieve what those stars have achieved.
Contact: FIFA website.
15. Gender Symposium: Gender and Sports in Africa's Development - Cairo, Egypt - November 23-25 2009
The Gender Symposium, held by the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), is an annual event that is designed to provide a platform for gender-focused debates. The theme for the 2009 event is Gender and Sports in Africa's Development. According to COSESRIA, most sporting activities offer opportunities for inclusive participation irrespective of gender, class, race, literacy, and other marginalising attributes. Participants in the 2009 symposium will be invited to consider various dimensions of gender and the multifaceted sports arena, with a view to reflecting on emerging and continued possibilities and obstacles in the search for and process towards a gender-inclusive African development project.
Please VOTE in our continuing POLL:
What is the most persistent problem facing marginalised female children?
Problem:
- Lack of access to education.
- Lack of inheritance and ownership rights.
- Societal acceptance of sexual teasing and harassment.
- Forced customs related to sexuality: e.g., FGM, arranged marriage, involuntary prostitution.
VOTE and COMMENT click here.
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RESULTS thus far (as of September 25):
55%: Lack of access to education.
27%: Forced customs related to sexuality: e.g., FGM, arranged marriage, involuntary prostitution.
9%: Societal acceptance of sexual teasing and harassment.
8%: Lack of inheritance and ownership rights.
This issue of The Drum Beat was written by Kier Olsen DeVries.
The Editor of The Drum Beat is Kier Olsen DeVries.
Please send material for The Drum Beat to The CI's Editorial Director - Deborah Heimann
The Drum Beat seeks to cover the full range of communication for development activities. Inclusion of an item does not imply endorsement or support by The Partners.
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