Caring Understanding Partners (CUP)

• Project Overview
• Objectives and Strategies
• Activities and Highlights
• Materials and Resources

Project Overview

The Africa Caring Understanding Partners (CUP) program was a unique partnership of sports associations and health organizations that promoted healthy lifestyles through organized sports. Since its inception in 1996, the groundbreaking CUP program worked through sports events to galvanize regional partners and deliver a range of health messages to young men. Because of its mass appeal and ability to reach millions, football (soccer) was and is a useful vehicle for delivering public health messages and promoting positive health behavior, particularly in Africa.

Synergistic partnerships among sports teams, health organizations, national ministries, businesses, and international donors provided the support and driving energy that made CUP sponsored events possible. CUP activities promoted a range of health behaviors including STI prevention, family planning, and child survival. Message strategies ranged from helping fans and community leaders decrease the silence and stigma surrounding AIDS to encouraging men to bring their children to clinics for polio vaccinations. This program's "game plan" to encourage young men and their partners to adopt healthy behaviors was endorsed by 175 policy-makers and program managers from 31 African nations.

CUP programs varied from country to country, yet they all relied on a shared passion for sports to reach players and fans in a variety of settings – from international football tournaments to school-based sports events-with high-impact health messages. These messages were delivered through a range of print, broadcast media, and inter-personal communications. Local partners were responsible for managing and implementing CUP activities. CCP provided technical assistance to help organize campaigns and build in-country capacity for future initiatives.

Objectives/Strategies

CUP’s vision was to build long-term partnerships among health, sports and community organizations, improve the health of men and their families, and strengthen men’s capacity to be caring, understanding partners and leaders.

The campaign goals were to:

• Increase discussion about AIDS (community and policy makers).
• Provide information and promote access to services for youth.
• Strengthen local organizations’ capacity and management skills.

CUP achieved these goals using the following approaches:

• Policy Advocacy: Mobilize national and community leaders
• Communication: Influence social norms through positive images
• Community Mobilization: Mobilize men’s participation
• IPC/Spousal Communication: Promote shared decision making
• Quality of Care: Improve access and services for men and youth
• Evaluation and Replication: Assess impact and share the materials and tools

Activities and Highlights

In general, CUP programs conducted the following activities to attract the attention of fans and deliver timely health messages:

• Built partnerships that provided organizational and financial support and strengthened in-country capacity for future programs.
• Trained and oriented players and coaches to serve as spokespersons and role models and helped fans to learn more about how to safeguard their health.
• Disseminated health messages through the media using television and radio and print materials to motivate behavior change.
• Organized health information and referral booths to provide counseling services, refer people to specific health clinics, and distribute campaign materials.
• Held community rallies around bus caravans and mobile video vans that visit communities before and after sports events.
• Empowered national leaders to use sports events as forums to advocate action for specific health issues.
• Managed small grants with local NGOs and sports organizations.

Regional Activities

Break the Silence: Talk about AIDS Campaign
This campaign was held during the Confederation of East and Central African Football Association's (CECAFA) Under-20 Youth Football Tournament because of the opportunities it provided to:

• use an innovative approach to reach large numbers of young men with AIDS prevention interventions;
• bring one-on-one counseling services closer to young men who do not frequent health facilities;
• decrease the stigma surrounding the disease by providing national leaders and health personnel with credible information and enabling them to speak out about the AIDS crisis; and
• launch a prototype health promotion campaign that could subsequently be implemented through football tournaments in countries throughout Africa.

Seven youth teams from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya (two), Rwanda, Sudan, and Uganda attended the tournament and participated in the AIDS prevention campaign. During CECAFA’s Under-20 Youth Football Tournament:

Counselors on AIDS information telephone hotlines provided one-on-one-counseling and referrals to callers.  Twenty counselors from a number of Kenyan NGOs developed a schedule to manage five open phone lines every day during the campaign in October, up to World AIDS day, December 1, 1999.

Players and coaches received IEC training in HIV/AIDS prevention. The players were guided -- through the use of AIDS and sports jargon -- to: (i) know your opponent, (ii) make your game plan, and (iii) be a champion; don’t sit on the sidelines.

Youth Ambassadors participated in HIV/AIDS prevention caravans.  These young people rode around in caravans, reaching out to their fans with AIDS prevention messages and informational materials.  The caravans stopped at designated points throughout Nairobi to encourage their fans to get “game plans” and sign autographs.

A working group of sports journalists for reproductive health was created.   Sports journalists covering the tournament and AIDS awareness campaign realized the need for, and advantages of, disseminating HIV/AIDS information during sports events.  This campaign assisted them to create a regional body – comprised of over 30 journalists – to ensure dissemination of HIV/AIDS information.

Health Information and Referral Booths installed at the stadium provided counseling services and distributed condoms and educational materials. 

Television spots produced by the campaign were aired for free. 

President Moi was personally briefed on the campaign.  Several weeks later he made his first public statement on AIDS, declaring AIDS a national disaster and calling for immediate integration of AIDS education in schools.

Reaching Men through Voice Of America (VOA) for Africa
Three 30-minute radio programs designed to reach men in Africa were produced by the CUP Initiative in collaboration with Voice of America.  Interviews and discussions aimed to share strategies among HIV/AIDS program managers and sensitize policy makers and the public about on-going strategies to curb AIDS.  The programs were designed to reach HIV/AIDS program managers, policy-makers and beneficiaries in Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Zanzibar, Somalia, Djibouti, Eritrea, Rwanda, Burundi and Sudan.

Production of Male-friendly Regional Materials
CCP worked with a variety of African organizations and international donors to produce and distribute high quality, male-friendly materials for regional use, including: television and radio spots featuring young football stars promoting HIV/AIDS prevention messages, calendars, posters, brochures, and banners.  The popular television spot, featuring players from all participating countries, was broadcast on World AIDS Day 1999.

2000 CECAFA Clubs Championship Media Campaign
The 2000 CECAFA Clubs Championship took place in Kigali, Rwanda, from May 27 to June 10.  AIDS prevention efforts linked to the tournament included radio and television AIDS prevention spots featuring popular Africa-wide football stars. The Office Rwandais d'Information (ORINFOR) broadcast radio and television spots with AIDS prevention messages using football vocabulary before the match, at half time and at the end of the match during 23 matches. There were 143 athletes and coaches, from 11 countries, who were exposed to HIV/AIDS prevention messages. Radio Rwanda spots reached listeners in three countries. An estimated 400 million spectators in the participating countries viewed spots during the games. Outputs included three versions of the "Break the Silence" HIV/AIDS prevention messages (English, French, Kinyarwanda), and 69 TV and radio spots with HIV/AIDS prevention messages broadcast throughout East and Central Africa.

Jouer pour la Vie ("Play for Life") Campaign
“Play for Life” was launched during the Africa Cup of Nations (CAN) football tournament in Mali in 2002. This multi-faceted campaign went beyond the CUP program's first regional campaign, "Break the Silence"  by using national leaders and prestigious football players to encourage young men and their partners to adopt and put into practice personal and family "game plans." A ceremonial event during the opening CAN ceremony provided leaders and national players with a forum to speak up and motivate viewers throughout Africa to take action to prevent AIDS.  While the first campaign worked with and through CECAFA, the second campaign received the support and official endorsement of CAF, the African Football Federation.

Country Activities

Tanzania

CUP football matches in Tanzania from November 1998 to January 1999 reached 20,500 fans. Counseling in the area of STD, HIV/AIDS, and family planning was provided to over 2,200 fans and approximately 80,000 condoms were distributed.

“Play the Game Right” Campaign used local football and football stars to inspire youth involvement. It was a presidential campaign targeting adolescent males, 15 to 19 years of age, with messages designed to promote safe sex, including condom use and voluntary counseling and testing (VCT). A highlight of the campaign was a football match between the two most popular teams in the country, Simba and Yanga, in Dar-es-Salaam's Uhuru Stadium.

Guinea

The Adolescent Reproductive Health Campaign integrated reproductive health messages into football matches as part of the campaign’s launching in two regions of Guinea-Kankan and Faranah. Messages were disseminated through half time shows, banners, distribution of print materials, and interweaving short messages with the radio play-by-play coverage.

Uganda

Television spots broadcast during World Cup matches in Uganda in 1998 encouraged men to “Stop, Treat, and Destroy STDs.”  These TV spots reached 8 million people, or half of the adult population of Uganda.  Exit interviews at clinics showed that 41 percent of those interviewed had seen the spots aired during the matches.  

Kenya

“Reproductive Health Challenge Cup” in Kenya delivered messages about the importance of male participation in family planning and the prevention of STDs and HIV/AIDS.  The Challenge Cup, a series of four matches held in January 1998, exposed240,000 fans to reproductive health messages, including 5,000 who were offered counseling services at the stadium.

AIDS prevention community mobilization activities were organized by the CUP Initiative and Media Network, a community media group in Kenya.  Activities aimed to increase men’s participation in the AIDS awareness campaign.  Forty-one community IEC sessions were organized in 29 neighborhoods in Nairobi and reached some 39,000 people, of which approximately 70 percent were men.

The organization of one minute of silence on HIV/AIDS at football matches in Kenya captured the attention of fans, leaders, health personnel and young people.  Messages or speeches that (i) encouraged people to talk openly about AIDS with their friends and families, (ii) emphasized AIDS prevention behaviors, and (iii) worked to destigmatized AIDS were followed by one minute of silence, and then a breaking of the silence.  This activity was promoted in sports events throughout Africa.

Rwanda

The “Break the Silence” campaign was held in Kigali, Rwanda during the 2000 CECAFA Clubs Championship. This campaign promoted increased awareness and public discussion of the HIV pandemic and the practices of safer sex.  Television and radio spots reached an estimated 400 million spectators in the 11 participating countries.

Ghana

Television spots in Ghana following the 1997 Africa Youth Football finals featured the Starlets, Ghana’s under-17 football team, which placed second in finals.  The spots were aired in English and local languages.

Adolescent training workshops and coaching clinics in Ghana in 1999 discussed health and sexuality issues raised by the players, trained peer educators and held gala soccer events attended by coaches, sports officials, the media, peer educators, and local political leaders. 

Nigeria

“Kick Polio out of Nigeria” football matches in the fall of 1998 encouraged parents—fathers as well as mothers—to bring their young children to clinics for polio immunization.  Nearly 40 percent of those who heard the campaign messages reported discussing immunization with their spouses.  Over half of those interviewed at clinics credited the campaign as motivating them to immunize their children.

Cameroon

Master “training of trainers” workshops held for football coaches in Cameroon in June 1999 provided instruction on how to integrate health, hygiene, and sexual responsibility into football camp programs.  Twenty-two coaches from all 10 provinces of Cameroon participated in the workshops.

Zambia

Television spots promoting family planning and safer sex aired in Zambia during the World Cup Events in Spring 1998.

Materials and Resources

• Break the Silence: Talk about AIDS (June 2001)
• Better Together - A Report on the African Regional Conference on Men's Participation in Reproductive Health (December 1996)
• Men : Key Partners in Reproductive Health - A report on the first conference of French speaking African countries on Men's participation in Reproductive Health
• Mali Press Kit (French)
• Burkina Faso Press Kit (French)
• Nigeria Press Kit
• Ghana Press Kit

Visit the M/MC Health Communication Materials Database for materials related to the CUP Program.

Visit Photoshare for photographs from the CUP Program.