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Sports could effectively deal with HIV/Aids among youth
2007-12-08 09:37:06
By Emmanuel Kihaule
`Sport and play activities provide a softer approach in addressing HIV/AIDS among youth as important messages are conveyed amidst their happiness and attentiveness.`
This is how National Training Officer for Right To Play-Tanzania, Godfrey Boniphace, describes the potential of sport and play in helping youth to cherish healthy lifestyles including protecting themselves from contracting AIDS.
According to him, the use of sports as a medium for getting across different health messages to the youth was unquestionably effective bearing in mind the power that sport and play enjoy across different sexes, races, cultures, nationalities, backgrounds, social status etc.
Godfrey says that it's now high time that the approach to fighting HIV/Aids is looked upon as the `fear creating` style has failed to bear long lasting solution to the problem.
``For quite sometime since the emergence of HIV/AIDS in 1980s messages aimed at warning people against the pandemic always took the 'fear creating' approach as an effective way for getting the point home,`` he says adding:
`No wonder pictures of skeletons with red `X` marks, thin people with sores all over dying in hospital beds and many more such negative images, were commonplace in HIV/AIDS public campaigns.`
But, he asks, has this approach brought about effectiveness in realizing the desired goals?
Researches in many parts of the world share the same position with Godfrey that though this approach managed to change people's attitudes at the beginning by showing how serious the health problem was, in the long run it backfired.
Instead of empowering people it created a sense of hopelessness, recklessness and denial of the existence of the disease because people eventually believed that the magnitude of the problem was far above their ability to control it.
For instance, in one research that was conducted in Ethiopia in 2001 it was concluded that for the war against HIV/AIDS to succeed it was important to shift from creating fear to giving people hope that solution is within their reach.
The study whose report is titled 'Managing Fear, Giving Hope` was a joint effort by the John Hopkins University and the Ethiopia's National Office of Population.
``when people either feel unable to perform a recommended response (an intervention) and/or they believe the response to be ineffective (due to negative images), they give up trying to control the danger,`` the report reads in part adding:
``Instead they control the fear by denying their risk, defensively avoiding the HIV/AIDS issues, adopting a fatalistic attitude, or perceiving manipulation ( e.g., AIDS is a hoax that really is a government plot).``
According to the research, when people are faced with a health threat they either control the danger or control their fear about the danger.
One of the variables mentioned in the report causing individuals to either control the danger or control their fear is self-efficacy which stands for the beliefs about one`s ability to perform the recommended response.
Others in the list are threat (the degree to which one feels susceptible to a serious threat, composed of two dimensions), severity of threat (the perceived seriousness of a threat; the magnitude of harm) and susceptibility to threat (the perceived likelihood of experiencing a threat), among others.
The research report states that perceptions of threat and perceptions of efficacy jointly influence health-related behaviours and if the perceived efficacy is high i.e. people believe they are able to do a recommended response, then they are motivated to control the danger and they adopt the recommended action.
In contrast, when perceived efficacy is low i.e. people doubt if they are able to do a recommended response and/or they believe the recommended response is ineffective, they turn instead to controlling their fear and engage in psychological defence mechanisms like denial ( e.g., ``there`s no such thing as HIV"), defensive avoidance (e.g.``I just don`t want to think about it``), or reluctance (e.g. "this is just a government plot``), it says.
Thus, it concludes by saying that a softer approach to the war against HIV/AIDS could help to translate people's knowledge about the pandemic into action by giving hope instead of solely relying on `fear creating` approach whose effectiveness is still questionable.
It`s from this backdrop, Godfrey says, Right To Play has decided to come up with a new program `Live Safe, Play Safe` or in short LSPS that uses sport and play as a channel to pass important health messages onto the youth.
``Unlike the `fear creating approach` sport and play make the youth very comfortable in participating and besides enjoying them, they also receive important messages that are behind each game,`` he says.
The Right To Play Tanzania official says that LSPS is a program that is intended to enable the youth to understand their health status and the importance of leading healthy lifestyles.
``It`s through sport and play activities that youth can learn how to communicate among themselves about various health risks such the ways though which HIV/AIDS spread and how they can protect themselves against it,`` Godfrey explains.
He enumerates the components of program as Knowledge (what`s HIV/AIDS, how it spreads, and how to protect oneself), Life Skills (helping youth to understand themselves and how to cope up with the changes they encounter as they grow) and Change of Attitudes (changing perceptions about others and other issues relating to their health).
Indeed, sports have worldwide proved to be effective in creating a sense of courage and confidence among youth and therefore give them a chance to decide wisely about their wellbeing and also keep their minds and bodies busy and thus avoid idleness as an empty mind is a house of Satan.
``Sport and play activities have improved my health and they not only give me pleasure but also those watching.
It`s through them that I`ve also learnt how to protect myself from diseases such as measles,`` says Hellen Mgambo, a standard five pupil at Uhuru Girls Primary School in Dar es Salaam which is one of the Right To Plat Tanzania partners.
She was one of the youth that were recently interviewed on a TV program 5 Sport that was aired by the East African Television (Channel 5) about the benefits they derive from sport and play activities.
This proves that sport and play can bring hope to people especially youth in the wake of HIV/AIDS because of the powerful influence that they enjoy among youth and other members of the society too.
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