photo courtesy of Will Prochaska

photo courtesy of Will Prochaska

We had the opportunity to chat with Will Prochaska, Director and CEO of the UK-based organization, Alive and Kicking. He and others at the organization have found a way to kill several big issues with one stone (or ball in this case): Alive and Kicking gives jobs to Kenyans and Zambians to hand-stitch soccer balls for African children. Through important messages about HIV/AIDS and malaria printed on soccer balls, the recipients of the balls  learn important lessons about health risks. To date, Alive and Kicking has distributed 250,000 balls, created 150 jobs and targeted 40,000 children with its HIV/AIDS campaign.

How did you get involved with the organization?

I’ve always been a football fan, or soccer fan I guess you’d you say over in the States. And I studied International Development at SOAS, the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, so international development has been something that I’ve been committed to for some time. I spent a bit of time with a friend… in Sri Lanka after the tsunami and that really touched the two of us. Since then I’d always wanted to get involved with international development and did so through my studies. Then I combined that with my love of football at this job, so it’s worked out very well.

Why balls as opposed to another toy?

Football is a continental obsession down there [in Africa], but there are no balls to play with. Kids in Africa are kicking stuffed plastic bags tied up with string around in the street. And if you travel around the region you’ll see that on a daily basis…  so balls seem to be a natural thing to try to provide for people. And of course it’s important to have them locally made so we can try to make a dent on the extreme poverty.

How do messages about HIV/AIDS and Malaria written on a ball lead to a conversation about health between students and teachers?

There’s something about a ball which is quite mesmerizing, particularly to children, and still to me. And of course being a football and taking into account the interest that people have in football, its a very useful visual aid for a teacher. So before a match a teacher will use a ball and point to the messages on there and that will be enough to hold a child’s attention for enough time, hopefully, to get across some very important key messages about how to stay healthy and alive. Once that’s done the ball can actually be used in drills to teach young people about how HIV works. So you might have five people pretending to be white blood cells, one person pretending to be the HIV virus and the person being the HIV virus will try to get around the defenders. So there are many things you can do with a football that will bring home to young people how HIV works and how you can avoid it. So it’s not just the messages on the balls, it’s the whole program that we like to use to get through to people.

Can you explain Alive and Kicking’s decision to donate all balls between Jan 2010 and the start of the World Cup to the Special Olympics Africa?

We’ve been partnering with an organization called Spirit of Football, which runs a program which they call “The Ball.” The Ball is football’s equivalent to the Olympics Torch.  The Ball is travelling through Africa and visiting Special Olympics programs. The Special Olympics use football quite a lot, a particular type of football, called Unified Football, which allows people of different genders, able-bodied people and disabled people to play in the same game. It’s a wonderful game which can bring everybody together. We thought this was so fantastic that we wanted to support it before the World Cup. And so to mark that we decided to give all the balls donated online to the Special Olympics Africa program.

Is there anything else you’d like people to be aware of?

I’d like people to be aware of the World Cup coming up. I’d like people to remember how difficult it is for children in Africa to actually even play with a real ball. And I think often that’s not at the forefront of people’s minds as they watch what we see as these shiny, fantastic tournaments. I think often those kids get forgotten. I would remind [people] to give a ball away.

Is there anything we would be surprised to know about you?

I actually grew up playing baseball, not football. My father’s American and he used to take me down to the American school in London and I used to play baseball for about five or six years. So maybe we should be making baseballs and not footballs.

March 19, 2010 by Annie
Tags: Alive and Kicking, b-listed, b-side chats, breakthrough, HIV/AIDS, HIV/AIDS prevention, homepage, Kenya, Right to Play, Tackle Africa, Will Prochaska, Zambia