The final two days of this pilot project encompassed cricket festivals in Hammanskraal and Mamelodi, and where we experienced our first proper bumps in the road. The challenges of mobilising young people of the right age for these festivals during school time was significantly more impactful here in South Africa, compared to the usual Cricket Without Boundaries stomping grounds of East Africa. Inevitably this was driven by a combination of factors; the reticence of schools to let students out during the school day, a low awareness of the purpose of the festivals and the link to health education, the short turn-around following the Christmas break, and the timing during the school days itself, to name just a few.
Nevertheless, with 160 young people taking part across the two festivals we still had the opportunity to deliver fun cricket activities which delivered the S-K-A messages, the opportunity to provide on-site access to HIV Self-Screening, and the opportunity to conduct interviews with coaches from the two regions, to assess the impact of the project so far, and to identify areas to work on for future projects.
The games and activities run by the coaches were all great, and neatly incorporated the key HIV messaging – it was heartening to see these guys take the initiative and set up the games with very little input from the CWB team. They’re all already good coaches, so adding this extra “string to their bow” is a big positive from the project so far.
Particularly popular with coaches and players alike was an adapted version of CWB staple “Rapid Fire”, with each of the three tennis balls marked with one of S, K, or A, and then flash cards of Screen, Know, Act placed next to the 3 cones for the fielders to the return the balls to, requiring the matching up of the letter to the card. Rapid Fire is always popular with players of all ages and, as it turned out, experiences, as girls and boys ranging from beginners to provincial age group players threw themselves into the games. At Hammanskraal this was nicely accompanied by the use of the “What questions do you have about HIV?” whiteboards, as players added their questions once they had finished batting. The benefit of having Ezintsha peer educators on hand then came to the fore, as they were able to work their way through these questions in mini Q&A sessions.
At Mameldoi we took a slightly different approach, with small breakout sessions to give a “HIV self-screening 101” chat between some SKA Rapid Fire and before a “proper” game of cricket. This proved to be a gateway to some excellent and wide-ranging conversations on more than just HIV self-screening, with a lot of focus on sexual and reproductive health more generally. It was a point of reflection for the team that HIV self-screening might act as a “gateway” to more comprehensive sexuality education, its novelty attracting a crowd and getting the conversation started.
All in all, these festivals have been a great testing round (no pun intended) for the broad concepts of the project. We’re confident now that cricket coaches can raise awareness of HIV self-screening. With a bit of work, we think that this could extend to delivering some good HIV 101 basics, either driven by interest from players or pre-planned into games. The final question to figure out is how or indeed if we then convert this increased awareness and knowledge into accessing HIV self-screening or similar services. The work is not done yet!
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