The morning started again with us catching up on event write ups, sorting photos and video footage, printing questionnaires for data collection, putting together our packages of materials and following up with partners for the next set of events.
In the afternoon, we set off towards Busega, a high density area in the heart of Kampala . Navigating our way through a maze of small dirt backroads (we wanted to avoid the infamous Kampala traffic!), we finally found our way to Busega Community Primary School, where the event was due to be held.
The Kids League, one of our partners for the event, were finishing off a football tournament which they had arranged to hold before our event. They finished off their last two games as we set up the screen, etc. AIDS Healthcare Foundation, our other partner, had arrived earlier in the day and had set up a HIV counseling and testing area in one of the spare classrooms. They had already tested 40 people by the time the event started.
When we arrived, we met the school headmaster who was overjoyed that the event was being held in his community: “Thank you so much for including Busega Community in your activities – we have had so many parents and community members coming today for testing and they are really grateful to have this opportunity”.
With our set up and the football tournament complete, the Headmaster took to the stage to welcome everybody, before presenting the teams who had won the football tournament with One World Futbol ‘nearly indestructible’ footballs as prizes.
A representative from AIDS Healthcare Foundation then shared some information about HIV, encouraged everyone to access their on site HIV counseling and testing services and conducted a quick HIV quiz – with Africa Goal T-shirts up for grabs for correctly answered questions.
During half time, we distributed information materials to both the children and adults, which caused a huge amount of excitement. It is, of course, wonderful to see how popular our materials are – developed and printed with support from SAfAIDS – however, the enthusiasm can get a little unnerving when fifty 8-15 year olds are about to mob whichever one of us is distributing them! At the Busega game, kids were stashing them in their bags, up their T-shirts and down their shorts, pretending they hadn’t yet been given one!
Once the chaos had died down, we all watched the nail biting second half of the Colombia vs Cote D’Ivoire game – the crowd cheering wildly at every Cote D’Ivoire attempt at goal.
