UNICEF SPORT FOR DEVELOPMENT INFOGRAPHIC 2016 SOUTH AFRICA

One of my deliverables when I was a sport for development consultant at UNICEF South Africa was to prepare an infographic on the past 10 years of the work UNICEF South Africa country office has done in Sport for Development. My portfolio as a advocacy and programme support consultant required me sourcing a graphic designer to design the infographic. Below was the infographic of giving children a sporting chance for a better life.

To provide context on the infographic I will start with our then partners:

1. FC Barcelona Foundation:

Through UNICEF Spain, The FC Barcelona foundation provided funding for sports for development programs at farm schools in Geluksberg and the North West, South Africa. This consisted in the schools having intra school sports competitions and leading social dialogs through the discussion of social issues taking place amongst adolescents in schools. Over 50 schools were involved in the programme in rural Kwa-Zulu Natal through the involvement of Civil Society Organisations.

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2.????? Department of Basic Education

UNICEF has been supporting the Department of Basic Education (DBE) since 2007 to implement the Sports for Development (S4D) programme as a co-curricular initiative that addresses social issues through physical activity and life skills. S4D was initially designed as a school safety initiative to address issues of violence and learner academic performance and mitigate risky behaviour amongst adolescents in the 585 most critical schools in the country. In 2008 it evolved to support the development of the school sports policy, teacher development through accredited training in Physical Education, Youth leadership training through the Girls, Boys Education Movement (GBEM), improve learner academic performance and develop multi-purpose playing fields.

Since 2014, UNICEF initiated two new programmes, GBEM Sports Youth Leadership Programme with two programmatic areas of focus for the learners which focused on weekly discussions on social issues and coordinating interclass tournaments. The second programme was the Physical Education (P.E) teachers training and Farm Schools Development Programme.

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3.????? Sportstec

Sports for Development is a strategy used to help bring about social change and cohesion in distressed communities. Sport and physical education is essential for the physical, mental and social development of children and adolescents. S4D uses sport and play as programmatic tools to promote health, education, child protection, gender equality, HIV prevention and reduce violence among children, young people and communities. UNICEF in partnership with Sportstec provided 60 schools in Geluksberg and North West, with an opportunity for learners to create intra schools competition and lead social dialogs.

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4.????? South African schools netball

In Partnership with SASN 1.2 million female learners from 16,000 schools across the nine provinces have participated in netball programmes that support both sport and life skills capacity. Three hundred educators have been trained to support the programme. The programme provides (coaching & technical Training, Youth Leadership Development & Empowerment of the girl child).

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5.????? University of Johannesburg

Through the Olympic Study Centre and the South African Universities Physical Education Association, the University of Johannesburg was critical in monitoring and evaluation of the school sports framework and also for doing research on the state of physical education and school sports in South African schools.

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6.????? SASCOC South African Sport Confederation and Olympic Committee

The launch will see SASCOC and UNICEF working alongside the Northern Cape Sports Confederation to increase capacity development of educators and coaches, whilst also developing community and club sports structures in De Aar, Kimberly and Kuruman.

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7.????? Sports for social change network

UNICEF has been working alongside the SSCN to build sports for development in communities and schools in the township, rural area and farm communities.

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8.????? UNESCO Quality Physical Education

UNICEF was elected as the lead agency to drive QPE in South Africa alongside The Department of Basic Education and UNESCO. South Africa was selected as one of five countries (Fiji, Mexico, Tunisia, South Africa and Zambia) to pilot the UNESCO Quality Physical Education Project. The overall goal of the project is to develop inclusive, child centered physical education policy which will help promote physical literacy and values based learning as part of rounded development and global education priorities.

9.????? SuperSports Lets Play Challenge

The Let’s Play Physical Education Challenge is a physical education and Sport-For-Development program that was launched in 2015 to educate children on how to live healthier lives and to reinforce the instruction of curriculum-oriented Physical Education, as well as teaching basic movement, co-ordination and to promote physical activity in all primary schools.

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UNICEF South Africa together with Department of Basic Education, Sport and Recreation South Africa, the Sports Trust, SuperSport and Active Education have designed and implemented the program in 1,650 schools throughout South Africa. The winning team is rewarded with sport facilities valued at ZAR 1.4 million and this is sponsored by the organisation, the Sports Trust.

?The results of the programmatic interventions included:

1.????? Reach 2,975,000 learners directly from 3,000 primary and high schools and train 350 coaches and 9,000 youth leaders across the country.

2.????? Inspire effective learning and performance in and outside of school to break the cycle of isolation, the disinterest in school and drop out, and reduce time out of school which leads to violence, teen pregnancy, and exposure to HIV and AIDS.

3.????? Increase access, retention, completion and learning achievement by supporting comprehensive life skills, psychosocial support programmes, partnerships with parent, learners and communities, civil society and private sector at school level.

4.????? Support the development of the School Sports Policy teacher development through accredited training in Physical Education (PE), Youth Leadership training through the Girls & Boys Education Movement (GBEM).

5.????? Deliver schools netball and assist learners to develop their leadership potential by developing multi-purpose playing fields.

What is critical about the work of using Sports for development as social tool is to understand the context of the South African education system:

• 17% of children aged 16 to 18 do not attend an educational institution. Most of them live on farms in rural areas.
• Teenage pragnancy often compels girls to drop out of school. In 2011, 11.5% of 13 to 19 year-old-girls left school because they were pregnant.
• Drug abuse, crime and violence are some of the social ills that appear when young people of school-going age are not in school and idle in communities.
• learner performance levels in South Africa are below average and lower compared to other countries in the region. Learners' achievements in national and international assessments is generally poor.
• Inequality in accessing quality education; learners from the poorest schools (quantile 1) have more than double the repetition and non-completion rate than learners from the richest schools (quantile 4). It includes inadequate qualification and low motivation of educators, large class sizes, lack of proper sanitation facilities especially in rural areas and widespread violence in and around schools.

The results of the S4D initiative were the training of

• 1034 educators, 56 Early Childhood Development Practitioners, 46 Hub Coordinators, 638 community volunteers, 3,169 Youth Leaders were trained as well as 509, 000 children were directly reached.

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By Sithembiso Nkosi