THE ESPH LIONS ARE ROARING FORWARD FOR TACKLE AFRICA
Tackle Africa – London Football Marathon and ESPH
On June 18th, for the 5th year running, I’ll be leading a team of ESPH Lions in Tackle Africa’s London football marathon. As the title suggests, it’s an endurance event with around 64 teams playing continuous 20 minute matches from 8AM to 8PM, all in aid of raising money for Tackle Africa – an HIV/AIDS charity.
Why support Tackle Africa?
Well, back in the spring of 2012, one of Tackle Africa’s trustees was a client and she told us about this great charity that harnessed the power of sport to educate and change lives. She told me about the pandemic that HIV/AIDS was (and still is) in various parts of sub-Saharan Africa and how they used the universal language of football to bring about behaviour change, largely in the young. This resonated with me for a number of reasons. Firstly, as health and exercise are my working life, the idea of sport as education appealed and the more I looked into what the Tackle Africa team were doing the more I liked what I saw.
But, there was also another reason. My father worked as a haematologist and did some pioneering work in the HIV/AIDS field in the 1980s. I remember him telling us about this new disease one evening at the dinner table. Not given to hyperbole, I found his description alarming. Soon there were adverts on TV and at the cinema with tombstones and icebergs to get the message across and a “don’t die of ignorance” leaflet campaign. Rock Hudson – matinee idol and icon of masculinity – died, Benetton used an image of a frail and emaciated AIDS patient in a billboard campaign and the topic had become the number one talking point.
Tackling HIV/AIDS through education
As an adolescent boy looking forward to a degree of sexual adventuring at this fraught time, the fact that everyone seemed to want to give me condoms was bemusing to say the least. In a world where there were no anti-retrovirals, and the media was stoking up public concern by portraying HIV/AIDS as a plague, maybe sexual adventure wasn’t such a big priority after all. But, then the story gradually died down. The drugs got better and the promised plague never really materialised in the UK. I went off to university and it was almost like AIDS went away.
However, this was not the case in the rest of the world – particularly not in Africa. According to a UNAIDS report from 2014, it is estimated that 2/3 of people living with HIV / AIDS live in sub-Saharan Africa and the very specific conditions that have allowed this awful virus to take hold in Africa feed off a lack of education. It is for those reasons that I am such a big supporter of the work that Charlie, Tom, Yianny and their team of volunteers at Tackle Africa do.
Football – an international language
Football is still the only truly global sport. As a rugby fan it pains me to say it, but it’s true. It is a language that’s spoken all over the world and understood by young and old, male and female alike and this is why it is such a powerful educational tool. I would urge you to check Tackle Africa out. Perhaps get down to next Saturday’s football marathon to support, have a look at their website or volunteer as a coach. There are so many options to get involved. They’re a great bunch doing a great job and as I bid farewell to my big toenails each year come football marathon time, I find it easier and easier to remind myself what a small sacrifice that really is.
Max Sharp
For further info please visit: tackleafrica.org
If you haven’t done so already please dig deep, rattle those piggy banks and help us out.