The EduSport Foundation
Lusaka, Zambia
In partnership with UK Sport
The EduSport Foundation is a community-driven, Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) based in Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. Founded in 1999, the foundation has been involved in tackling issues like HIV/AIDS, poverty alleviation, and child rights in underprivileged communities in Zambia. Using the "Sport in the Development Process" (SDP) approach, they seek to foster community education, development and empowerment.
The EduSport concept is based on this belief: that sport with a positive orientation, when integrated into the broader framework of human and social development goals and priorities, is a powerful vehicle for change. As almost every child in Zambia participates in sport, either through merely watching or actually playing, sport presents a medium of communication that children and youth are both familiar with, and willing to participate in.
The EduSport concept was developed by indigenous Zambians. The focused Zambians founded the EduSport Foundation and registered it as one of the first sports NGOs in Zambia on 27th October 1999. Since then, the foundation has been actively involved in local communities, implementing programs designed to meet the local community’s basic needs.
They are currently implementing projects in six provinces only (Lusaka, Western, Copperbelt, Eastern, Centraland Southern), but have embarked on a five-Year Plan (2005-2010) to spread programs to all nine provinces of the country.
The EduSport Foundation has two main purposes, Human & Social development and Sport Development. They follow the philosophy of “UBUNTU”. This is a Bantu language word which means "to do with people". In this instance it means that the programmes and everything we do is centred on the interests and needs of the people we serve.
Go Sisters!
If you are a girl in Zambia aged between 15 and 19, you are four times more likely to become HIV positive than a boy of the same age. Widespread sexual abuse, traditional practises, lack of access to education, low social status all contribute to the disempowerment of successive generations of Zambian women.
The Go Sisters programme run by the EduSport Foundation in the capital city of Lusaka, uses sport to empower a new generation of girls to fight discrimination and challenge traditional gender perceptions. The girls are taught coaching, refereeing, team building and playing techniques in soccer, volleyball, basketball and netball. These skills help them to become competent and often inspiring leaders and role models.
They give the girls the confidence to help educate their peers beyond sport – across communities – and become champions on the key issues of HIV awareness and women’s rights.Encouraging girls to stay in education is also a key objective. EduSport provide scholarships to enable coaches and players to complete their school education; last year 131 young people were awarded scholarships 91 of which were girls.
Sport is an effective development tool widely utilised in under privileged communities to disseminate messages to a wide audience. Sports tournaments have become hugely popular and deeply competitive. A number of EduSport players have gone from community programmes to representing their National teams.
The Go Sisters project has embarked on an ambitious plan, supported by DfID, to expand into 4 Provinces over the next 3 years whilst also incorporating young people with disabilities into their programmes. Go Sisters is just one of the sport-focused development programmes run by EduSport.
To find out more about EduSport's amazing work please click
here or visit the Friends of Edusport
websiteUK Sport - International Development Programme
UK Sport works in partnership with organisations and agencies across the world to assist with the development of sporting systems, promote the power of sport as a tool for human and social development, form and maintain strategic partnerships with international partners, and ensure the UK is kept abreast of sporting development worldwide.
UK Sport aims to develop a small number of long-term strategic partners with UK based and International NGOs, to further the use of sport as a tool for human and social development, primarily in the Sub-Saharan Africa region. These partnerships will are based around the following development area outcomes, which relate the programmes priority themes:
- Coach education, training and deployment
- Youth development and leadership
- Organisational capacity building
- Disability sport
- Advocacy and awareness raising
They aim for these partnerships to be powerful exemplars of global partnership; equity will be a core criterion in all alliance agreements, and HIV and AIDS training and education will be addressed in all four themes.
To find out more about UK Sport's amazing work please click
here
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