We have just completed our HIV/Aids awareness programme in the Zomba region of Malawi with the Sports Finals held over the weekend of March 26th 2010.  This was funded with the help of Irish Aid and reached 23 Schools resulting in almost 23,000 school children being assessed for their knowledge of Hiv/AIDS.  They were taught awareness of the condition, prevention, causes and treatments. We wanted to bring openness to the discussion of Hiv/AIDS in a mixed classroom environment while building self-confidence in these children through public speaking and Sport. 

The Quiz and Sports competitions were open to boys and girls and some interesting and important observations were made. 

At first, most of the contestants did not have much confidence or knowledge but by the third day, they showed they had worked hard and had the confidence to stand up and answer knowledgeably.

All the zonal winners came from schools with Teacher Development Centres at the School indicating that the centres are really fulfilling their role of Educating pupils in all the different subjects.

Some of the Teachers knew as little as the children on Hiv/AIDS issues e.g. Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission and Post Exposure Prophylaxis. While in another case, the patron was Hiv positive and had great belief in the Anti AIDS School Club keeping the school and pupils up to date.

We have learnt from the Sports programme that there is so much football, netball and athletics talent and skill in these communities but they lacked the resources to train and compete. We are confident that the competition and trophies will be actively supported in the future.

For example: Due to the Playing for Life initiatives, the National Athletics Coach, Francis Munthali, praised Playing for life for supporting athletics, he said a lot of NGO's leave out Athletics and just concentrate on Football and Netball trophies. He said he has identified 4 students, two boys and two girls, as having great potential and alot of skill and he will call for these students once the district competitions start and is confident these students will excel. He said a lot of skill is in the rural areas but they lacked the platform which we have now given them to realise their full potential.

We have been monitoring this programme and our research and development team have made some suggestions for improving it when we roll out our next programme in June 2010.

We want to keep the schools updated and increase the range of activities to strengthen the clubs interest in the programme. Examples would be the provision of football & netball kits to keep the pupils busy and bringing role models to talk to the pupils encouraging them to work hard in class and avoid promiscuous behavior thus remaining Hiv free.

We are confident that our programme aims have been achieved with the added bonus of identifying sporting talent.

We would like to thank Irish Aid for providing us with the necessary funding for this initiative and Ms Tendai Mayana for putting it together and travelling to all these remote and rural schools to quiz the pupils.  We also would like to thank our colleagues in the Playing for Life office in Malawi, Mr Winston Chiwaya and Ms Thandie Soko for overseeing this element of our project so efficiently.