TackleAfrica in partnership with YONECO distributed Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to 40 female coaches/Peer Educator who use football drills to promote Sexual Reproductive Health (SRH) among their peers.
The donation was made in the areas of Traditional Authority (T/A) Namabvi and Makanjira in Mangochi as well as in T/A Zulu’s area in Mchinji district. The items that were distributed include facemasks, hand sanitizers and soap. Further to this, the Peer Educators were also supported with radio sets, plastic buckets with taps and handwashing basins.
“Although football sessions were suspected due to COVID-19, as Peer Educators, we are still providing one-to-one sessions and this donation has come at a right time,” explained Lista Lungu, a Peer Educator from Mchinji.
In his remarks, the Programme Manager for TackleAfrica in Malawi, Peter Diaz, explained that apart from the PPEs, the girls will also be able to get critical SRH information and updates on COVID-19. Diaz further added that TackleAfrica has also introduced a new participatory radio programme in order to reach out to young people with information. The radio programme will be aired every Sunday on YONECO FM.
YONECO and Tackle Africa are implementing a Project called leveling the Field. The project is aimed at reducing the prevalence of unintended teen-age pregnancies and Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) including HIV. Thus, the coaches who received the items were trained under the project which commenced in 2018 and will phase out in 2021.
