SEDYEL ALL STAR Tournament Promotes Health Education Through Sport

The event set out to produce a sense of African pride and motivate young people to work towards the goal of an HIV free Africa using the catch phrase “Africa’s World Cup, Our World Cup”. To keep with the world cup theme each team was given a country’s name and flag to use throughout the tournament and during the tournament’s opening ceremony.

Sport and Health Education
Although sport was a key component of the tournament, teams were not judged on sporting prowess alone.

To receive awards teams had to perform equally well in an “Intelligence Show” where they answered questions on topics such as HIV/AIDS, sex and sexuality, adolescent sexual reproductive health and body growth.

To help them out during the quiz teams had been provided with some educational sessions from facilitators from the Ministry of Health.

Sumaiyah Marope, Miss Botswana who led the intelligence show said of the event:
“Through sport, children can learn to stand strong when facing challenges, can learn to preserve when faced with failure, and can learn fair play and team work”.

Future tournaments
SEDYEL along with its partners, German Technical Cooperation/Youth Development through Football program, Commonwealth Games Association of Canada, and United Kingdom Sport intend to make this an annual event.