YDF in Swaziland: Contributing to the country's future through football

The Kingdom of Swaziland is a small country land-locked by South Africa and Mozambique. It gained independence in 1968 and is today ruled by King Mswati III. Swaziland is a member of the Southern African Development Community, the African Union, and the Commonwealth of Nations. Its economy is dominated by the service industry, manufacturing and agriculture; however, Swaziland's economic growth and social integrity are under serious threat from the world's highest HIV-infection rate. According to estimates, more than 26 per cent of the country's 1.3 million citizens carry the virus, a situation that poses a danger to the country's existence if uncontained. Today, approximately 190,000 people in Swaziland are HIV-positive, including 15,000 children under the age of 15. According to the 2009 Epidemic Update of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, the average Swazi citizen's life expectancy fell by half to 32 years between 1990 and 2007, in large part due to the epidemic.

Combating the drivers of HIV-infections in youths

Among other things, the relatively early start of sexual activity among the youth, the low social status of girls and women, and associated high levels of gender-based violence are discussed as underlying causes. Young people have also named the lack of youth-friendly services that provide access to health services, the lack of recreational facilities and poor job prospects as contributing factors. In search of solutions, sport is increasingly being viewed as a suitable tool for behavioural change and for disseminating crucial information on a sustainable basis. It was against this backdrop that the Youth Development through Football (YDF) project decided to include Swaziland in its 'Strong youth, strong Africa!' 2010 World Cup programme, and embarked on a successful partnership with the Swaziland National Sports Council (SNSC). In this way, Swaziland became YDF's tenth partner country on the African continent.

From soccer to transformation

The Swaziland Social Transformation Network (SSTN) submitted an application to the Swaziland Government to have the youth-development-through-football approach implemented in cooperation with the National Football Association Swaziland (NFAS). The transformation network aims to contribute to the economic and social-transformation discourse of governmental and non-governmental institutions by facilitating and increasing effective participation and engagement in development policies that impact on human potential. The network focuses on applied research, knowledge and skills development and is working in the area of public-health and health-systems reform, governance, gender, socioeconomic rights and social development in Swaziland. The football association is established throughout the country, with a total of 721 teams across the four regions. The coaches are driven by the game and in the past, concentrated primarily on technical-skills coaching, having had limited capacity for strengthening life-skills education among their soccer players.

The coach as mentor and counsellor

The partnership project will not only strengthen their coaching ability further, but also introduce them to coaching-for-life approaches. In addition, it seeks to increase the participation of young people in the discourse on HIV/AIDS, gender-based violence and male circumcision through educational approaches which use sport as a means of behavioural changes. Furthermore, the project aims to create a pool of coaches who are both trained in life-skills education and knowledgeable about HIV/AIDS in order to integrate these skills further into the sports sector. Simultaneously promoting the opportunity for young girls and boys to participate in sports activities and creating women's teams in the communities, the project also strives to provide a forum for young people to engage in conversations on HIV/AIDS, gender and male circumcision, and to strengthen the capacity of coaches as mentors and counsellors to their teams. Strengthening youth-leadership skills and motivating policy-makers to lead the fight against HIV/AIDS in their communities is another aspect of the project.

Two coaches from the National Football Association have already been trained as instructors on the YDF Toolkit, with further coach-training sessions set to take place throughout the year. After the initial training, the instructors will review the YDF training manual and incorporate specific modules hand in hand with the development of the project in the country.