Barclays Supports GRS Zambia to Deliver its Biggest Programme to Date.
Grassroot Soccer and Barclays have embarked on a new three-year partnership to fight HIV and AIDS in Zambia.
Barclays, through their Spaces for Sports programme, has long been active in the use of sports as a means to bettering lives. In Zambia, Barclays’s dedication has taken the form of continued support for Grassroot Soccer. Together, GRS and Barclays have been using the power of soccer to help prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS since 2005.
This newest partnership is the most significant and exciting to date, as the Barclays Spaces for Sports programme has committed its support to GRS and PEP FC for three years, until 2012. The partnership will enable GRS to conduct more than 600 interventions that will provide over 18,000 Zambian youth with the knowledge and skills they need to live healthy and HIV-free lives. Barclays will also support the training of over 50 members of GRS’s Peers Educating Peers Football Club (PEP FC) and two GRS Skillz VCT Tournaments.
PEP FC is a group of GRS peer educators in Zambia who excel not only as soccer players, but also as role models and HIV prevention educators. By using peer educators who are skilled soccer players, GRS and Barclays hope to leverage the popularity of soccer and the ability of those peer educators to relate to Zambian youth to make a strong and lasting impression on thousands of young Zambian minds.
Barclays Spaces for Sports recognises the power of sport to deliver social change, and its projects go beyond sport to have a lasting impact on communities. As an award-winning community sports sponsorship programme, Barclays Spaces for Sports is ideally placed to partner with Grassroots Soccer.
Barclays Spaces for Sports has already opened 200 sustainable sports sites across the UK, benefiting more than half a million people. The GRS Zambia programme is the 5th project to have received support under the Barclays Spaces for Sports global programme.