HCT!

Yesterday was our HCT (HIV Counseling & Testing) Tournament and a lot - some good, some bad, some funny, and some strange - happened at this event! So here's a play-by-play of the day in pictures (Trevor took ALL the pictures and was kind enough to let me use them):

On Thursday and Friday we walked the streets of Roodepan telling people
about our event. These young boys were eager to sign up to play!

GRS coaches did energizers and GRS activities with participants
throughout the day!

18 teams (13 boys teams and 5 girls teams) competed in our 7 vs. 7
tournament.

These are the gazeebos where participants and suporters could get
tested for HIV.

We invited a lot of other HIV prevention and awareness organizations, as
well as some of our partner organizations - Youth AIDS, New Start, Life
Line, Legatus, the Department of Sports and Culture - to our event. Here,
Youth AIDS is giving a condom demonstration to a team.

We had some really good teams sign up for the tournament. It was a double elimination tournament (you lose twice and you are out) and about half the games were decided with some really dramatic penalty kick shoot outs. This is one team's reaction after they won a match:

Adorable right?

We had lots of prizes that we were giving away - trophies and medals to
the winning teams as well as Nike shoes, soccer balls and GRS t-shirts.

Lots of people were at the award ceremony (and at the event)!

The winning girls' team with Coach Bucs!

All in all, it was a successful event. We had 3 soccer tournament winners (U19 boys, U15 boys and girls) and a "Test Your Team" Winner (the team that participated in the most GRS activities, tested the most team members and got the most members from the community to test) and we tested approximately 150 people! I learned a lot at this event and already have ideas that will make our next HCT even better!