HITTING THE COURT...

I arrived in Durban after a long flight from the US… and a quick overnight stop in Johannesburg. I came here to profile a Washington-based NGO called Peace Players International . The group primarily works with youth (under the age of 15) to teach them basketball. Most of the kids have never played before since football (soccer), rugby and cricket are the most popular national sports.

Winding through the hilly terrain with PPI’s Director of Operations Andrew Gordon (an Adams Morgan native and my tour guide extraordinaire), shows just how extensive the program has become. Every couple of miles (or kilometers), he would stick his hand out of the car window to point out a basketball court that the organization has built. After several years on the ground, PPI reaches more than 2,000 children (of all racial backgrounds) in 40 schools, with a staff of about 70 local coaches. But their work extends far beyond the court. Coaches offer life skills workshops on a range of topics from leadership to etiquette and nutrition. A large part of this educational component focuses on HIV/AIDS awareness. This is critical in a province like KwaZulu Natal, which has evolved into the epicenter of the epidemic with the highest HIV prevelance rate (antenatal) in the country at nearly 40 percent.

“We learn how to protect ourselves,” Minenhle Shandu, 13, said of the program, which teaches kids how to cope with relatives that are HIV positive, along with other practical skills and information about how the disease is transmitted. “We can’t do sex if we are under 18 years old.”

Minenhle, who aspires to be the next Michael Jordan (check out his pose with the ball in the above photo), is one of dozens of children that I met during my tour through several townships over a two-day period, which began with stops in Lamontville and Umlazi (South Africa’s second largest townships outside of Soweto). Most of the children, who ranged in age from 12-16, said that they knew very little about HIV/AIDS or felt uncomfortable talking about it prior to being involved in the PPI program. But many of them admitted that they knew someone in their community who had the disease. In fact, some of the students are AIDS orphans. At Ngongomusa Primary School in Umbumbulu, a rural area about 45 minutes outside of Durban, Principal Thandiwe Shabangu said that approximately 50 percent of her students have been orphaned.

“There is a high rate of dying here [from HIV/AIDS],” she said. “It has caused many of them to go to orphanages or be adopted by their aunts or grandmothers, because they have no mother.”

In spite of the daunting circumstances, hope abounds. That was evident on a warm Wednesday afternoon in Molweni, a sprawling township dotted by houses that are spread across lush, green foothills. I concluded my visit at a basketball practice with some of the PPI coaches and staff. As I watched them play a pick-up game, I thought about the kids that I had interviewed. Their hoop dreams? To “pass the ball” of knowledge about HIV/AIDS to other children like them. That’s something to watch from the sidelines……