Sports fans the world over are focused on South Africa this month, home to the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Not so much in the spotlight though is this grim statistic: South Africa is home to 5.7 million people infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS — more infections than anywhere else on the planet.

Travel to the remote Nkomazi district of Mpumalanga Province, near South Africa’s eastern border with Swaziland and Mozambique, and you’ll find yourself in the area with the highest per capita rate of HIV infection in the world. You’ll also find some truly unique youth sports leagues run by Triad Trust. Triad, which stands for Training to Reduce the Incidence of AIDS-related Death — is a Boston-based non-profit aimed at training local leaders to run HIV education programs in this rural and poverty-stricken pocket of South Africa, and to do it sustainably.

“You go where it’s worst. It’s where the need is most dire,” explains Brooke Wurst, executive director of Triad Trust, when I ask her why her organization is focused on this region in particular. “The official government statistics say that 40% of the population is HIV positive. When you start parsing the numbers you’re talking about 60% of the population between the ages of 18 and 34.”

Launching Soccer’s Role in AIDS Activism

Wurst remembers her first trip to the region in March 2007. She was there with a medical educator to ask questions and to figure out her game plan to make a dent in those numbers. “I looked at this group of girls who were just playing soccer in their school uniforms with a ball that was made of old socks and old yarn.” She gave them a real soccer ball and told them she’d be back. She knew what she had to do. “We realized the way to do this was to do something that hadn’t been done before and create programs through sports, and through the schools to engage these kids and have local medical educators, local drama troupes working with the sports programs.”

A half a year later, Wurst was on the ground with her first team of experts, who ranged from doctors to professional athletes. They were there to train community members to be medical educators, coaches, referees, drama instructors, and what Wurst calls the “local executives” of her fledgling organization. As with READ Global, or One Acre Fund, programs I have written about in the past, local sustainability is a crucial element to Triad Trust’s success, and benefits its communities in myriad ways. The Nkomazi district suffers massive unemployment, and Triad’s presence not only offers health education, it bolsters the local economy by providing much-needed jobs.

Anti-Aids Soccer Movement Adds Triad Trust

In 2008, Triad Trust launched its soccer league, Triad Nkomazi Rush. Staff from Triad fly in every three months to make sure things are running smoothly, and Rush, an American youth soccer organization provides training on how to run the league, as well as the all-important uniforms. “At first a couple hundred kids would show up to a program,“ Wurst recalls. In two short years, the league has firmly taken root. “At this point in the sports program alone, there are officially 2,500 to 2,600 kids who are participating,” Wurst says. Although today’s 160 teams are all boys, a few girls have recently shown interest. Triad hopes to use the momentum to create a girls’ league as well.

It’s remarkable that Triad has garnered such a commitment in this desolate region, but here’s the real kicker: In order to play, participants have to attend a medical education session each week, run by the local medical educator and sometimes the drama troupe. If a player doesn’t show up, he can’t play in that week’s game. “These are all rules that were established and defined by the local league executives, nothing that we came in and forced on them,“ Wurst points out. Further, after one season of medical education, players, coaches, and referees alike are required to be tested – confidentially — for HIV every 90 days.

Remarkable, again, because of course, as Wurst says “it’s the medical education that is really the core of what we’re doing.” And judging by the numbers, it’s working. “Kids are doing it because they understand,” she says. “We’re seeing tremendous results not just in participation but in the beginning stages of behavior change—and that’s the hardest thing—the behavior change.” 

The Power of AIDS Education

Triad Trust believes it can jumpstart that change by making the facts relevant to the participants’ lives, and that when they know their HIV status they can make informed choices. “We teach them about what testing entails, what testing means, and what happens after they get tested,” Wurst explains.  And if someone tests positive? “We partner with people who can extend care, and who can extend social services,” she says, adding that Triad follows up and makes sure that the person gets to a hospital within a week to determine a course of treatment. “If someone tests positive, it’s not a deal breaker in terms of participation in the league. We want kids to be healthy and strong, but we don’t want them to have to do something that’s going to risk their safety of the safety of others.”

Hugh Masekela and Other Luminaries Join In

Triad Trust has the involvement of some high profile sports figures, and musicians such as Hugh Masekela. Sarah Kate Noftsinger, who played professionally for the now defunct Women’s United Soccer Association signed on about a year and a half ago, and is now Triad’s director of sports and leadership programming. As Noftsinger told the New York Times in a recent article about the program “It’s a way to address something that nobody wants to talk about through a game that everybody loves.”

And as Wurst reminds, it’s not just about soccer, although in the midst of the World Cup, it’s hard for it not to be the focus. The drama troupe does important work at the high school level with education through music and role play. The basketball league, though smaller, (it’s a challenge to find useable courts), has the same requirements as the soccer league. It’s also an example of how far Triad Trust has come in establishing itself in the region. “Just this past week we had Trent Johnson, the head coach at Louisiana State University go down to run a training with coaches from around the province in which we work. And that was an amazing step because these were people who were invited by the provincial government because they had heard about the work that the local Triad group was doing,” Wurst says proudly. “Everyone is working towards the same goal, which is raising a generation of HIV-free kids and enabling those who are HIV positive to live healthier, longer lives.”

And what of the World Cup’s impact on the part of the world to which Triad Trust has dedicated itself? Wurst has a story to tell that illustrates how much things can change, given hope and resources. 

“A year ago, I’m walking through this village where I am the only white person, there are no paved roads, and I see a little shelter that has a beautiful mural painted on it that says “We Welcome the World” in English and then it says it in the local dialect – and it has a globe that’s painted as a soccer ball. And even I am doubtful that in this remote village outside of this remote town would see any benefit whatsoever.”

But today, with Triad Trust’s help, it’s a different story. “Suddenly these towns have attention paid to them and it gives them a reason to believe that what they’re doing makes a difference,” And, she concludes, “I contend that the most important soccer games being played in Africa right now are not happening in Johannesburg or in Capetown or in Port Elizabeth or in Durban, they’re happening in these little villages in this very rural region. Because these are the games that are a sign that these kids are learning, and that these kids are engaging and these kids want a healthier future. The only reason they’re playing in these games is because they participated in the medical education, and they keep coming back week after week, month after month, season after season. I think it’s a tremendous boon and I hope that the world doesn’t forget come July 11^th because I know that the kids in these villages are still going to be working as hard as ever. “