just for fun

Danielskuil, a small mining community located 150km outside of Kimberley, is the first place that GRS began running programs in South Africa. Danielskuil is also where Thuso is from. And last weekend, Danielskuil was hosting a Youth Day event and GRS was invited (read: Thuso said GRS Kim would help) run the soccer portion of the event.

Trevor and I with some of the coaches.

So on Saturday, Trevor and I got up, drove around Kim picking up the 7 coaches who volunteered to come to the event and hit the road. We arrived in Danielskuil around 10h00, got a quick tour (took less than 5 minutes - I thought Kim was small), and headed to the Youth Day event.

The winning team.

This was one of the smoothest, most fun and relaxing events I have attended in a long time! I spent my day jamming out with Big Eyes and Thuso's little brother, watching some Hip Hop and cultural dancers and refereeing soccer. It was pretty amazing how referee signals enabled the soccer players and I to communicate flawlessly.

Second place team.

When the event was done, we piled back into the Condor and Big Eyes, Coach K and Nthabi spent the entire ride home teaching me to say "leave me alone" and other (less appropriate) phrases in Tswana.

I had a really good time seeing Danielskuil, reffing some soccer, learning some Tswana and spending the day with coaches.

juggling my life

One of my favorite GRS activities recently added to Skillz Street is called 'Juggling My Life'. 'Juggling My Life' begins simply; participants form a circle and are asked what things they have to do in life (school, eat, sleep, etc) and what things they choose to do in life (sports, spend time with friends, watch TV, etc). As participants answer, a GRS coach pulls a tennis ball from their bag and writes the task on it. 

Eating and dancing - some of the things we must do and some of the things
we choose to do.

After 6 or so things have been added to our "life" (the circle represents our life), participants are told that they have to keep all of these things in the air by juggling them as a team. One person starts by throwing the ball underhand to someone across the circle. That person then throws the ball to someone else. Players throw the ball to the same person every time. If a ball is dropped, you simply pick it up and keep going. 

After the passing order has been established, participants and coaches then begin to juggle all the different things they have to do, as well as the things they choose to do. After a few rounds the coach stops the game and asks players to discuss whether the game was easy or hard, and what happened when they dropped a ball. The purpose of this round is to demonstrate to participants that we all drop the ball (make mistakes) now and then, but that it is important to pick ourselves (and the ball) back up and get back into the swing of things. 

Then the GRS coach adds a new ball to the mix: sex. 

This is Mikaela. She is 12. She is holding the 'Sex'
ball. And she knows a girl her age who has already
had sex.

First the coach leads a discussion about why the 'Sex' ball is so much bigger (because sex is a big deal, because sex can complicate things, etc) and then the group begins juggling with the 'Sex' ball thrown into the mix.

As participants play the GRS coach sneakily adds a few balls to the mix. Before you know it, balls are flying everywhere and the game is spiraling out of control. At this point, the GRS coach stops the game and asks participants to look at the balls they are holding. Some participants are still holding tennis balls labeled 'Sleep,' 'Eat,' and 'School,' but there are also participants holding tennis balls labelled:

HIV,

pregnancy,

and STI.

Woah! Where did these new balls come from?!?! At this point, all fingers point towards the 'Sex' ball and, alas, the culprit is found! Coaches then lead girls in a discussion, asking them to think about whether or not sex complicated their life (it did because there were more balls being juggled) and whether or not the consequences of sex were easy to fix.

I like this activity because I think girls really get it. They get that sex is not something we have to do. They get that sex might complicate things. And they get that the consequences of sex might force them to give up other things such as school, friends and even their health. 

we need to do more

Grassroot Soccer has a practice called ‘My Supporters.’ This is a really fun practice! It starts the way most team building sessions start; participants form a tight circle, one participant steps in the middle, closes their eyes, and "falls" into the circle where their teammates protect them from harm. But it ends in a different way; coaches and players role play "leaving" and "supporting" someone who has HIV.

Our coaches doing 'My Supporters' at a Development Session.

A lot of the "leaving" role plays have participants say something along the lines of; "you have HIV! You are a filthy disgrace and I don't want to have anything to do with you!"

This practice leaves participants with two Key Messages:

1. In life, everyone needs supporters. Short, sweet, and powerful. 
2. Stigma (thinking a person or group is bad) and discrimination (treating a person or group unfairly) cause people living with HIV to feel alone and helpless. Also short, also sweet, and also powerful... but while our young participants seem to understand and adopt this Key Message, older generations are not as easily accepting.

After living and working in Kimberley for ten months, I have grown very close with several of our coaches. And some of our coaches really do like me, some of our coaches really do trust me, and some of our coaches really want to share their stories with me. Their stories range from the funny and the ridiculous, to the sad and the troubling. I love hearing coach's stories and I always do my best to be a good listener, to support them in whatever way I can and to keep their stories confidential.

But I would like to share a few stories that I have heard (I did ask the story-tellers if I could share their stories in a "confidential" manner with my friends and family back home). I am not going to name any names and I am keeping some of the details purposefully vague, but I still think the stories will touch you.

Story #1: I am HIV Positive

A coach told me that they are HIV positive. They went on to say, "I am telling you because I can tell that, the way you talk about HIV you know - you really know - that it is not the end of the world. You won't tell anyone else and you would never ever change how you are to me." I was touched. After talking about ARVs with this coach and making sure they were going to their doctor appointments, I couldn't help but ask why they didn't want to share their story with GRS. This coach cut me off mid sentence and ardently declared, "I can't tell them. You see they... they all give the guide and they all say one thing, but you know they don't practice what they preach. And you would see. If I told them, you would see that they would tell everyone my story like it was gossip and they would treat me different. No I won't tell them. I won't."

Story #2: My Dad Gave My Mom HIV

Another coach told me (vague details on purpose) that their father was not faithful to their mother. The father ended up getting HIV and infecting the mother. Our conversation dealt a lot with how the mother was coping and how the coach was feeling, but it was not an unhappy conversation; it was actually full of optimism and hope for the future because their mom left their father and was taking her ARVs. When our talk was wrapping up, I once again found myself asking if this coach wanted to share their story with GRS. "No way," they asserted, "you can't tell them (the coaches) these stories. Even if they have them going on in their life too, when you tell, it's like they are better than you because they can keep on denying it. No they will think they are better than me."

Story #3: We Absolutely Will Not Allow HIV Testing at Our School

We have been running our Skillz Street program at Greenpoint Primary School this term. I picked Greenpoint because it is one of the most economically devastated communities in Kimberley, it is often over-looked by other NGO's and government programs, and it has one of the highest (if not the highest) HIV prevalence rates in the Northern Cape. 

Yesterday morning I visited the school with the intention of organizing a Skillz Street HIV Counseling & Testing day. I was quickly told that there would be no HIV testing allowed at the school. Michelle, the wonderful staff member with whom I was speaking, told me, "the parents don't want it." 

"Many of them have HIV and they know it! They are taking the ARVs and going to the doctor, but they always say it is for something else. And there are children enrolled in our school who we know have the virus. Many of them don't even hide it - they will come to me and just say, 'Ma'am, I have to go home because I forgot to drink my ARVs.' But the parents they are a different story. They will come pick the children up to go to doctor appointments and tell us things like it's because the child hurt her arm in a car accident or because the child has thin blood and what what. I don't know if it is hard for them to admit it or if they are scared to say it out loud, but many of the parents are in denial and they don't want anything to do with HIV testing."

I understood her concerns perfectly. If they let us host a testing event at the school, some of the parents would unleash all hell. 

All three of these stories talked about three of the same things in conjunction with HIV: stigma, discrimination and denial. People living with HIV/ people that have family members living with HIV are stil hesitant to share their stories because they fear that others will stigmatize and discriminate them. And it seems that a lot of people living with HIV, especially among the older generations (30+) are living in denial. For whatever reasons, it is easier for them to say that they have TB, meningitis or cancer - diseases that are perceived as "curable" - than it is for them to admit that they have HIV, a disease that is manageable with ARVs, but for which there is no cure. 

Grassroot Soccer works hard to teach youth about the dangers of stigma and discrimination. But we need to do more. We need to reach out to older generations so that the parents, the grandparents, the aunts and the uncles that care for our participants can also begin to break down the stigma and discrimination towards people living with HIV. We need to do more. We need to address a new challenge that these stories introduced to the fight against HIV/AIDS: denial. None of the GRS curriculums address the danger inherent in denying that you are HIV positive. We need to do more. 

If you have read this far, I hope you are willing to read just a bit further (my apologies for the lack of pictures, but pictures and confidential stories don't really mix). I would like to share my own story. 

My Story: HIV is Not A Death Sentence... So What is it?

Whenever GRS hosts a testing event - whether it is at Skillz Street or whether it is in the community - some coaches want to get an HIV test. And it always amazes me that they are absolutely terrified to see their results.

I get it... in part. I've gotten tested at our events and even though I have no reason to have HIV (as a single lady living in a foreign continent, relationship prospects aren't exactly high), I am scared that my results will be positive. What I don't get though, is that our coaches have access to information and resources that most of the community lacks; they know how to avoid getting HIV (and hopefully are adjusting their behaviors); they know that HIV is not a death sentence; they know other people living with HIV; they know that GRS will accept you, build you up, and show you off to the world as a strong individual fighting to make a difference. And still they are terrified that they will test positive for HIV, that they will be cast out by their friends and family, and that their life will "end" as they know it. 

And it's even worse when a participant tests positive. I haven't encountered a single coach who doesn't start bawling on the spot upon hearing that one of their participants is HIV positive. I haven't encountered a single coach who doesn't ask me to tell the child because it's just too much for them. I haven't encountered a single coach who actually seems to believe that living with HIV will not destroy a participant. 

And I just don't quite get it... In South Africa, if you are HIV positive, the government will give you free ARVs. The government will give you free counseling and psychological support. The government gives families grants so that they can take their children to their appointments. The government changes school curriculums, providing comprehensive HIV education as well as 'positive living' education. The government is trying to do its part. 

Right now the South African government, as well as domestic and international NGO's, are doing all they can to fight HIV in the medical and social spheres. But maybe this isn't enough. I read an article recently that looked at how free access to ARVs was affecting individuals living with HIV. Prior to 2004, the South African government did not provide free ARVs to people living with HIV (PLHIV). Instead PLHIV were classified as "AIDS-sick" and qualified for disability grants. Because poverty and unemployment are widespread throughout South Africa, these grants became a relied upon to ensure access to food and housing for PLHIV and their families. After ARVs were rolled out, many PLHIV experienced improved health and lost their grant eligibility. The study suggests that although HIV-positive people continued to take their ARVs, they do so in a piece-meal fashion to ensure that they will still receive the disability grants (this is very dangerous because if you don't take ARVs regularly, your strain of HIV can become immune to the medicine you are taking). The study concluded that in order to make "positive living" possible for PLHIV, it is necessary to provide sustainable economic suport in conjunction with ARVs.

Most problems do not exist in an isolated realm and neither does HIV. To stop the spread of HIV, we need to attack it from all angles. We need to continue to fight stigma and discrimination, but we should also start to fight over-looked things such as denial and proper education. We need to continue to focus on HIV-prevention, but why don't we ever try to teach HIV prevention in conjunction with poverty-prevention? In short, it won't be easy (but nothing ever worth doing was easy, right?), but we need to do more.

so much enthusiasm!

We've been busy at Skillz Street! Not only have the coaches been working hard to create strong team bonds, but we've also discussed risky behavior that increases our participants risk of getting HIV and led some vital conversations with participants regarding gender norms.

Coach Crista with her 'Awesome Angels.'

Sis Debz with her team.

Coaches also got girls to think about what characterizes a healthy relationship versus an unhealthy relationship. For this activity, girls partnered up with one of their teammates, listened to a statement read by their coach, and then decided if that was a "healthy" or an "unhealthy" relationship. Two of the statements the girls were asked to discus were; "your partner is 4 years older than you" and "you and your partner always make decisions together."

Girls discussing what they think are some healthy and unhealthy
relationships.

The purpose of this activity was to teach participants that healthy relationships are built upon communication and mutual respect. It also stressed the importance (and value) of dating someone who is your age because you like them and not because they give you things in exchange for sex.

The coaches did a great job with this activity, coming up with creative ways to praise girls for answering correctly and playing games to keep the day interesting. 

And after teaching the girls how to pass, dribble and shoot in Practice 2, today we finally introduced them to Fair Play soccer!

My favorite part of Fair Play soccer is that after scoring a goal, both teams are supposed to celebrate together. I love this rule because as soon as someone scores a goal in any of the five games that are going on, high pitched screams of joy and victory songs are shouted out for all to hear!

The best thing about this round of Skillz Street is that the participants - girls from Greenpoint Primary School - seem to really love the program. A bunch of them have asked if they can have Skillz Street everyday and they never want to go home when Skillz Street is over.

Yesterday there was no school because it was Ascension Day. I actually got phone calls from participants asking if they could please have Skillz Street. I sadly had to tell them that there was no Skillz Street. But I promised to bring them all lolipops on Tuesday, so hopefully they will forgive me. 

poi poi!

My favorite GRS energizer is the Poi Poi (and no, I have no idea what that means). The set up for this energizer is pretty simple; a large circle with one person in the middle. And the words for this energizer are just as simple:

Person in the middle: Poi Pooiiiii!

Everyone else in the circle: Whodayyy Whoday!

Poi Pooiiiii!

Whodayyy Whoday!

Poi Pooiiiii!

Whodayyy Whoday!

*repeated as many times as the person in the middle desires*

Sister! (points to someone in the circle)

Step in!

Sister! (points to some else  in the circle)

Step in!

*repeated as many times as the person in the middle desires*

Poi Pooiiiii!

Whodayyy Whoday!

Poi Pooiiiii!

Whodayyy Whoday!

*repeated as many times as the person in the middle desires, but this time around the person in the middle does a lot of crazy moving/ dancing/ whatever you want to call it and everyone in the circle has to copy their every move*

Sister! (points to someone in the middle)

Step out!

Sister! (points to some else in the middle)

Step out!

*repeated until everyone has left the circle*

Hopefully you can see from the pictures why the Poi Poi is my favorite energizer. Coach Necy did a fantastic job leading this energizer at Skillz Street today. She had so many of the girls and coaches laughing so hard that they were practically crying. 

And yes, I am blogging about Skillz Street again. Because this is my last Skillz Street and because we have pretty much finalized the newest version of the program, I want to share with you - practice by practice - what exactly happens in Skillz Street.

Today was Practice 2: I am Beautiful. The first thing that girls do in this practice is create their own Body Maps. They are supposed to make a drawing of themselves exactly as they are; as Coach Mpho likes to say, "if you have hips draw your hips, if you have boobs, draw your boobs, and if you have bums, draw your bums and be proud!" Girls then star the parts of their body that they like the best. After completing their body maps, girls then identify two strengths they have and add symbols to represent these strengths (i.e. if you are a caring friend you could draw a heart). When all the girls have completed their Body Maps, they are given a chance to share them with their Team. Coaches then lead girls through a discussion about what it really means to be beautiful.

At the end of the discussion Coaches share the Practice's Key Messages with participants:

1. Each one of us is beautiful in our own way.
2. Each of us has strengths that make us special and unique.

To wrap everything up each girl is asked to complete the sentence, "I am beautiful because..." at the top of her body map. I love this practice. 

And that's not all - Practice 2 is also the first day that we introduce the girls to soccer. We start the introduction with a good old fashioned warm-up complete with jogging, side shuffles and karaoke, just like any youth team in the States would do. The only difference in Skillz Street is that these girls have never done these sorts of exercises.

Now imagine trying to teach your dog to karaoke. That what it is like trying to teach girls how to do these exercises. They just never quite get it right. And there is a lot of stumbling and bumping into each other, but there is a lot of laughter as well. 

Normally after the warm-up, it would be time for soccer. But the girls had so much fun doing the warm-up exercises that I made up a few more for them to try out. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. 

the first day of my last Skillz Street

It's taken 268 days to get to this moment. It's taken 51 practices to get to this moment. It's taken 14 self-designed and self-implemented training sessions to get to this moment. It's taken 678 pictures and 5 videos to get to this moment. It's taken 16 coaches to get to this moment. It's taken 1 determined intern to get to this moment. And this moment is (drumroll please), the first practice of the last Skillz Street that I will run in Kimberley, South Africa. 

Heading to Skillz Street today, I wasn't sure how I felt about it being "the first day of my last Skillz Street," but as I watched ten Kimberley coaches lead 108 girls through 'Practice 1: Join the Skillz Street Team!' I felt nothing but pride. Why's that? Because the coaches rocked it!

Practice 1 is a fun practice. It's purpose is simple; explain what Skillz Street is to the girls and get them pumped to be a part of Grassroot Soccer's girls-only program that lets them join a team, play soccer, talk about girl stuff, and have fun. Girls get to make their own team contract where they pick what rules they want to follow. Girls get to come up with a powerful team name that represents who they are and all of their positive qualities. And girls get to invent their own Team Kilo and Team Anthem to show off their awesomeness.

I'll be honest, back in September (when I first got here) I saw some awful first practices. I've seen first practices where girls do nothing but sit quietly in their classroom as coaches talk about... who knows what with them. I've seen first practices where girls don't get a chance to make their own team name. And I've seen practices where girls weren't allowed to make a Team Anthem because they "were being too naughty." But today there was none of that.

And at the end of the day when each team got the chance to perform their Team Kilo and Team Anthem on the Skillz Stage I was blown away by the effort, creativity, and sassiness of the teams.

It certainly wan't easy getting to this point because it took more than just careful planning, organization and the ability to smile and wave when someone spoke to me in a foreign language. In Kimberley, I had to go a step further and convince our female coaches that soccer was indeed a girl's game.

The fact that soccer is the world's most popular sport is everywhere - in newspapers and magazines, on blogs and websites, and evident in many non-profit groups' missions. And due to its popularity it is now widely acknowledged that soccer is a universal language that reaches everyone. And this is true. For guys. For girls, it's a whole different ball game.

It's not that girls don't play soccer and it's not that girls don't like soccer, but just as gender norms and the development of sports have resulted in male-dominated sports in other countries (i.e. American football, cricket, rugby), in South Africa, soccer is a sport played mostly by guys. And the current culture in South Africa reinforces this idea. Soccer leagues for men are well-organized, encourage the development of players (in fact the youth leagues look very similar to those found in the U.S.) and are even sponsored. In contrast the girls "leagues" are loosely organized, require a lot of extra work (and money) on the part of the players and provide limited opportunities for girls interested in soccer.

Some South Africans still insist that girls can't play soccer. I've had several conversations with guys in the townships that always end in them calling me a liar and swearing that there is no way I actually can play soccer. Other guys that have seen me play soccer order me to stop because if I don't, "it will make [my] legs look too much like a guys'." And worst of all, in some parts of the country it is believed that women that play soccer will be turned into lesbians.

In this context, most girls choose not to play soccer, opting instead to play netball (a sport that combines team handball with basketball). And most of GRS Kimberley's female coaches didn't think it was wise to actually play soccer in Skillz Street.

I was flabbergasted! These female coaches were part of an organization that uses soccer to affect behavioral change and yet, they didn't want to use soccer! Instead of playing soccer with the Skillz Street participants they wanted to let them go home early or play other games with them. Well as you can imagine, I would have none of that.

It wasn't easy to convince 16 adults, many of whom had never played soccer, that the soccer part of Skillz Street was good. It wasn't easy to show them that soccer was indeed a powerful tool for young girls (just letting them play soccer shows them it's not only a sport for guys). But with the help of the participants (I shamelessly started asking a lot of them - in front of the coaches - what their favorite part of Skillz Street was, to which they all answered "the soccer!") I finally convinced the coaches that every part of Skillz Street, from the soccer to the team building, was awesome and had tremendous power.

And today during Practice 1, I saw every single coach fully engaged and invested in Skillz Street. It was an incredible sight. And it left me feeling confident that not only will this be the best Skillz Sreet league yet, but also that Skillz Street will continue to empower young girls in Kimberley long after I am gone.