Lifeskills: Football for Water
Football for Water is a public-private partnership (PPP) consisting of the following organizations: Royal Netherlands Football Association, Unicef Netherlands, Simavi, Vitens Evides international, Aqua for All, Akvo and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The main goal of the program is to improve drinking water and sanitation facilities at 1100 schools in Kenya, Ghana and Mozambique. Furthermore, more than 700,000 school children will be taught life skills related to hand washing, clean drinking water and improved sanitation through football- and life skills coaches (WorldCoaches).
History
During the celebration of UN World Water Day on 22 March 2012 in Wageningen, the new program 'Football for Water' was announced by the Director of KNVB Bert van Oostveen. The KNVB works together with Unicef, Simavi,Vitens Evides International, Aqua for All, Akvo and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The public-private partnership is characterized by 50-50 contribution by private partners and the Dutch government.
The partnership will provide 750.000 children in Ghana, Kenya and Mozambique with a healthy environment and at the same time awareness on personal hygiene will be raised. Drinking water- and sanitation facilities will be installed through (local partners of) e.g. Unicef, Simavi and Vitens Evides International. The KNVB, with local partners, will educate WorldCoaches in order to establish behavioral change and will set up school football competitions. Specifically for this program, a new Life Skills Manual was developed for the subjects in the field of WASH by the University of Utrecht. The program will run from april 2012 until march 2016.
Basic WASH Manual
Issues of health and hygiene are crucial to every human life. Good hygiene prevents you and your players from infections and diseases, such as diarrhoea. Proper hygiene practices enable you to maintain your dignity and to reach your goals in life.
You play an important role in the hygiene practices of your players. As a WorldCoach, you are more than just a football coach. You can deliver hygiene messages to your players. You can show your team members the importance of hand washing and drinking safe water for example. You can encourage them to develop good habits and to live a healthy life.
The earlier children and youths learn about good hygiene, the higher the chances of achieving and sustaining positive results in their generation and the community as a whole.
This manual will support you, as a role model, in teaching life skills. These are necessary for changing hygienic behaviour of your players in a positive way.
The Basic WASH Manual will guide you through these critical topics:
- Introduction to WASH
- The relation between WASH and disease
- Three crucial behaviours
- Why Life Skills?
- Why should a WorldCoach care about WASH?
- How can a WorldCoach contribute to WASH by Life Skills?
- What role can a WorldCoach play in Life Skills training?
- Roadmap (realize, analyze, act)
- Tools: fun activities and games you can play to address basic WASH issues
Safe Sanitation
Safe sanitation refers in general to facilities for safe disposal of human faeces and urine. Unsafe sanitation is a major cause of disease. Therefore using latrines properly and stopping open defecation are of high importance for improving the health of your players and yourself.
The Safe Sanitation manual will guide you through these critical topics:
- Stop open defecation
- Good use of latrines
- What can you as WorldCoach do for safe sanitation?
- Roadmap (realize, analyze, act)
- Tools: fun activities and games you can play to address sanitation issues
Hand Washing
During our daily activities we pick up invisible intruders on our hands. Therefore, to protect us from infection transmission, it’s necessary to wash our hands. Worldwide around 1.500.000 to 1.700.000 lives could be saved by hand-washing with soap after contact with human excreta.
Although people all over the world wash their hands with water, water alone is significantly less effective than washing hands with soap in terms of removing germs. Hand-washing with soap is one of the most effective ways to prevent the spread of infection and is the single most effective way of reducing diarrhoeal illnesses: washing hands correctly at the critical times can reduce diarrhea by nearly 40%. Hand-washing can also help to reduce respiratory problems by 25%, such as skin and eye diseases or worm infestations.
The Hand Washing manual will guide you through these critical topics:
- When to wash hands
- How to wash hands correctly
- What can you as WorldCoach do for hand washing?
- Roadmap (realize, analyze, act)
- Tools: fun activities and games you can play to address hand washing issues
