LS&Co. Unzipped

Jun 25 2010

Who are you rooting for?

My name is Phiko Dingiso.

I usually play central midfield and began coaching soccer in 2005.

This week, I am coaching the children of Levi Strauss & Co. employees in South Africa at a soccer camp run by Grassroot Soccer – a local South African nonprofit focused on HIV/AIDS and soccer.

I decided to participate in the program because my older sister died in 2003 of HIV/AIDS and I heard that there was this organization teaching people about HIV through soccer and I wanted to learn more.  

HIV/AIDS prevention is important to me because if I am teaching the importance of HIV prevention, I also have to protect myself.  As a coach, I can lead by example.

If there’s one thing I hope these kids learn from participating in this camp, it’s how to work as a team, resist peer pressure and, when the time comes, practice safer sex.

During the World Cup I will be rooting for Argentina.

My name is Nokuzola Mathis.

I began playing soccer when I was 29 years old (I played netball growing up) and I began coaching in 2006.

During the extended World Cup holiday, I’m also coaching the children of Levi Strauss & Co. employees in South Africa at a special soccer camp that teaches kids how to protect themselves against HIV/AIDS.

I decided to participate in the Grassroot Soccer Holiday Skillz program because I want to learn more about HIV/AIDS. There was a child I was coaching and his mother died of HIV and I didn’t know what HIV did to a person at that time. Through this program, I know much more.

Teaching HIV/AIDS prevention to these children is important to me because we’re teaching them how to protect themselves. Knowledge is powerful.

If there’s one thing I hope these kids remember from participating in this camp, it’s how to protect themselves from HIV/AIDS and share what they learned here with the people in their community.

During the World Cup I will be rooting for Bafana Bafana (South African national team).

Grassroot Soccer runs the Holiday Skillz program this month at the Football for Hope Centre in Khayelitsha, South Africa. The program will host 45 boys and 36 girls between the ages of 10 and 16 for a five-day curriculum of soccer and life skills training with an emphasis on HIV prevention. These boys and girls are children of Levi Strauss & Co. employees. Grassroot Soccer-trained coaches like Phiko and Nokuzola, featured here, will run the program. It will conclude with a graduation celebration, including a trip sponsored by Grassroot Soccer and chaperoned by Levi Strauss & Co. employee volunteers to a World Cup match between fourth-ranked Netherlands vs. nineteenth-ranked Cameroon.

With an estimated nationwide HIV/AIDS infection rate of almost nine percent among fifteen to twenty-four year olds, there is an urgent need for early HIV education and prevention in South Africa.

The Grassroot Soccer camp is part of a broader commitment by Levi Strauss & Co. in HIV prevention, treatment and care.  As the first global company to focus on HIV/AIDS in the workplace, Levi Strauss & Co.’s Employee HIV/AIDS program is designed to reach all of the company’s employees and their family members in every country where it operates. http://www.levistrauss.com/sustainability/people

Posted By: Genevieve Sexton
	Tags: Social Responsibility

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