Sensitization

It feels like a dirty word- “Sensitization.” A negative, dirty word that rings in your ear for a bit after it is mentioned. I have an internal irk when it is used casually in the context of advertisement. Our coaches and my programme coordinators use the term when we discuss informing the public about events that we are having. In reality calling advertisement “sensitization” isn’t a dirty word; it is honest, to the point, and awkward.

As awkward for me as it is, sensitization is an integral part of what we do at Grassroot Soccer. GRS runs ten sessions of our curriculum in schools, with community groups, and any grouping of youth that seems willing and able to commit ten hours of their time. Ten sessions that aim to educate youth about HIV and AIDS and engage them in discussions. Sensitive subjects; thus the sensitization.

As I have mentioned before I work on a project that is funded by the UNHCR and which predominately works with refugees. There are about 15,000 urban refugees in Zambia and since there are few urban areas outside of Lusaka most refugees are concentrated within the city limits. The city’s limits are a fluid notion with the city stretching out instead of up and houses being filled like cans of sardines. Numbers are inaccurate but in a big 2010 push the government of Zambia is holding a census. I was counted in that census, hopefully contributing to something positive in the overall make-up, budget, or strategic planning of the city and of greater Zambia. But, in all honesty, my role is not that big in the scope of Zambia nor in the scope of Grassroot Soccer. For Grassroot Soccer this week I was darting around the field checking in on our coaches and learning how to drive the hap hazardous boulder fields that are John Lang’s roads.

John Lang is a compound along the outskirts of the city and is one of the most populated and desolate feeling places that I have been. A group of our coaches are implementing GRS’ curriculum at a community school (different from a government school in that many of the kids cannot afford uniforms) within the compound. Packed in a cinderblock classroom with a hole punched out for a window…kids learn. They learn mathematics and notebooks peppered with notes on Buddhism and other world religions provide insight for these kids. Their escape is after school, when GRS activities kick in and they become the center of the universe in the compound.

They start their activities- today it was team handball- and suddenly a swarm of kids form a perimeter that is un-passable unless you happen to be the token anomaly, a mzungu (remember this means white person). Beautiful faces. Hopeful smiles. Torn clothes. And dirty feet. What a scene. I feel privileged to see it and moved by its rawness- of those 15,000 urban refugees only approximately 5,000 of them are documented. How many of these children live in hiding? How many of them have lost parents? I don’t know the answers and I don’t need to know the answers, just need to be reminded that supporting our coaches means supporting the smiles on those faces and the notes in those notebooks, and hopefully an HIV free life.