Extra-Time

From where Esther Goba sat watching two football teams clad in “HIV POSITIVE” t-shirts competing in a football tournament in Limbe, Malawi, she wouldn’t strike you as someone who is at the frontlines of the life-or-death match against HIV/AIDS.

Dozens of participants in MSF’s HALFTIME! football tournament in Limbe, Malawi take part in a march to raise awareness of the consequences of international HIV/AIDS funders cutting back on spending. Photo: P.K. Lee/MSF

But Esther, aged 53, is doubly affected: she has been living with HIV for the last 8 years and she is a nurse with a passion for supporting people like herself and ensuring that they stick to their life-saving antiretroviral (ARV) treatment. 

Last week she was one of the scores of supporters I saw next to a football pitch at the Chiwembe Technical Centre, in Limbe, where people living with HIV and staff from Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders (MSF) HIV treatment projects in Malawi, played football as part of MSF’s HALFTIME! initiative. Representatives from the Malawi Ministry of Health (MoH), the support organisation NAPHAM (National Association for People living with HIV/AIDS in Malawi) and Dignitas International also participated.

HALFTIME! is an MSF initiative to raise awareness of the impact of international donors withdrawing from funding HIV/AIDS projects and treatment. While the other HALFTIME! events around the world (in Johannesburg, Brussels, Geneva and Berlin) were hosted in cities, HALFTIME! in Malawi had a very different backdrop – beautiful mountain views, clear blue skies and villages dotting surrounding areas.

Esther has been working as an MSF staff nurse in Malawi’s Thyolo district for nine years now.

In 1995 when Esther’s husband died of AIDS it was at a time when people in Malawi still knew very little about the disease. Later she started working with MSF in a prevention of mother to child transmission programme, motivating pregnant women to get tested for HIV. “One day I told myself: ‘Why don’t you get tested as well?’ ” Esther told me.

Esther Goba is an MSF nurse working in an HIV/AIDS treatment project in Thyolo, Malawi. She has been living with HIV since 2008 as both a patient and medical worker. “We have the right for life. We have the right for treatment,” Esther says. Photo: P.K. Lee/MSF

“I tested HIV positive in 2008 and I started ARV treatment later in the same year. To me ARV treatment means life and hope,” she said. “Since I learnt of my status, I had one hope – to educate my children. That’s the only thing I wanted to do in my life.”

Thanks to the ARV treatment, Esther achieved more than she hoped for. Not only is she able to see her four children growing into adults, but she is also able to make a difference in the lives of dozens other people living with HIV by working as a nurse.

As a medical worker in the battle against the HIV/AIDS crisis, Esther has also witnessed the importance of continued funding for ARV drugs which has brought treatment closer to people in need. “By now I thought we would be talking about the improvement of ARV treatment, the management of side-effects and access to newer and better treatments. But instead now we hear the international donors talking about cutting funding,” Esther explained to me.

“If the donors cut the funding on ARV treatment, it’s like saying that they just want us to die, they want our children to suffer again, they want our children to be orphans,” said Esther. “We have the right for life. And we have the right for treatment.”

- PK Lee, MSF Communications Officer.

How strange it would be if the players in a World Cup winning side were to meet just five days before the deciding match for the very first time to train together and then take the title with a convincing victory…

Taking the HALFTIME! title: Munyaradzi Dodho, coach of Zimbabwe’s Opportunistic Infection Bombers (OI Bombers) celebrates his side’s victory in the final match of the HALFTIME! tournament. The team was the top scoring side in the tournament, with 12 goals out of the total of 34 being off the boots of OI Bombers’ strikers. Photo by: Lisa Skinner

But when Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders (MSF) promised you an alternate take on football through the HALFTIME! initiative during the 2010 FIFA World Cup, that is perhaps exactly what was to be expected: unexpected success against the odds.

HALFTIME! brought together six teams of people living with HIV from across Southern Africa to compete in a 5-a-side football tournament in Johannesburg, while similar football matches and events took place around the world. We did this to raise the alarm about waning funding for life-saving antiretroviral treatment needlessly risking millions of lives when international donors back out of financial commitments.

Unlike the other teams in the HALFTIME! tournament the OI Bombers (Opportunistic Infection* Bombers), only met for the first time as a full team in Harare, Zimbabwe just days before their departure to Johannesburg and entered the tournament as underdogs.

Not only did the Bombers have to overcome the fact that they come from two different towns more than 500km apart, where MSF operates HIV/AIDS treatment projects in Tsholotsho and Murambinda, but they were also divided by language. Three of the members are Shona speakers, while the other three speak Ndebele. But despite this the team quickly banded together, finding a common goal in their quest to remind the world the HIV crisis is not over and that international donors should stay in the HIV/AIDS funding match.

“Many people have been asking me about how I feel about coaching this team and whether we are going to win any games. But we are taking this game seriously. For us it will be an opportunity to raise the flag high by winning. Winning is anything that comes from doing our best and we will do our very best,” coach Munyaradzi Dodho told us.

On the eve of the tournament they told the other teams: “We are going to bomb you on the field like ARVs bomb opportunistic infections like TB.”

And on Friday 2 July when they took to the field against the other five teams from South Africa, Mozambique, Swaziland and Zimbabwe they proved their mettle and did just that.

South Africa’s Siyaphila team goalkeeper Nandipha Makhele tries her best to stop a shot at goal by Janet Mpalume, star striker of Zimbabwe’s ARV Swallows during the HALFTIME! 5-a-side football tournament in Johannesburg, South Africa. Photo by: Lisa Skinner

First they trounced Mozambique’s Mambinhas 2 – 0. In their next game they blasted their way to a massive victory 8 – 0 victory over South Africa’s Siyaphila when they unleashed their full arsenal, just as they had promised.

The Bombers went from zeroes to heroes in an instant, becoming the team to beat and even surpassing the ARV Swallows – fellow Zimbabweans and early favourites to win HALFTIME!. By the time they met South Africa’s rough and ready Fluconazole Pirates in the final the Bombers were a force to be reckoned with.

The final came down to a penalty shoot-out and the Bombers clinched a 2 – 1 victory to take the tournament title and to become the top scoring team with a total of 12 goals – proving to the world and international HIV/AIDS treatment funders that halftime is NO TIME TO QUIT!

MSF staff and people living with HIV participating in the HALFTIME! tournament in Johannesburg, South Africa take to the streets for a celebratory march to conclude the tournament. Photo bu Lisa Skinner

“If the funding ceases, my life will be no more. These international funders should not retreat now. They should continue supporting us. And even African governments should chip in what they have, so those outsiders [international donors] can do more with their efforts to keep on funding,” OI Bombers defender, Cloud Mapiti says.

– Maureen Mazibisa, OI Bombers team leader and Borrie La Grange, Head of Communications MSF South Africa

*[Opportunistic infections such as tuberculosis are the most dangerous enemy people living with HIV/AIDS face and antiretroviral drugs help combat this by improving the ability of the body’s depleted immune system to fight back]

Learn more about HALFTIME! visit: www.msf-halftime.info

MSF footbal event in Geneva. Photo: MSF

Around 50 Médecins Sans Frontières members based in Geneva got together on the evening of July 1st, to play in a friendly football tournament, to kick some HIV balls and to enjoy a picnic dinner with families and friends on the grass by the Lake. The white team, led by advisors to the Swaziland and Mozambique missions, was highly motivated and scored numerous goals !

The all-star Brazil football squad entered the 2010 FIFA World Cup as early favourites to make it to the finals and hope to lift the golden trophy. And similarly in Médecins Sans Frontieres / Doctors Without Borders (MSF) upcoming HALFTIME! tournament in South Africa sees a strong Zimbabwean team as one of the top contenders to take home the title five days before the kick-off here in Newtown Park, Johannesburg on 2 July. 

ARV Swallows. Photo: Joanna Stavropoulou/MSF

The ARV Swallows, an all female football team from the Epworth township near Harare are coming to South Africa with an impressive track record – they have won the HIV women’s league championship in their home country and are motivated to take victory in on Friday as well. HALFTIME! and the tournament featuring people living with HIV and MSF staff from four countries in Southern Africa in an effort to raise awareness on the continued battle for funding to fight HIV/AIDS. The tournament sees six football teams playing matches to raise the alarm about the ongoing HIV/AIDS emergency.

The ARV Swallows formed in 2009 when a group of HIV positive women, all seeking treatment at an MSF clinic in Epworth decided to form a football team to take on two stereotypes: that HIV is a death sentence and that women cannot play football.

This year, the ARV Swallows find themselves taking on a different challenge – to spread the message that the HIV/AIDS emergency is not over and HIV treatment funding needs to be secured. In order to do this they have had to make some changes. They have reduced the team from 11 to five players and they have had to draft a man into their ranks, their coach Jonas Kapakasa, as an additional member to meet the mixed gender requirement for teams to participate in HALFTIME!

And China is also going to play in this Zimbabwean team, too… A multinational team? No, no, no… “China” is the nickname of Janet Mpalume, the ARV Swallows’ star striker!

It has been Janet’s dream to play football abroad and this week her dream comes true when she and her team mates take to the HALFTIME! pitch in Johannesburg along with five other teams.

“We are training as hard as we can and I believe that we are going to beat the other teams. Playing soccer makes me feel like I am alive. It allows me to feel like I am valued and that I am seen amongst other people,” Janet says.

They clearly have the guts and determination, but will they be able to fend off challenges by countrymen the OI Bombers, Swaziland’s HIV Conquerors, Mozambique’s lightning fast Mambinhas, and the South African hopefuls, Siyaphila and Fluconazole Pirates?

We’ll have to wait and see if the ARV Swallows team will be victorious again. Visit the tournament in Johannesburg on Friday, or if you can’t make it find out more about the teams and the tournament here www.msf-halftime.info.

For more information on ARV Swallows visit www.thepositiveladiessoccerclub.com

- PK Lee, MSF Communications Officer

There are six African teams in the World Cup in 2010—and another six in the HALFTIME! 5-a-side tournament planned for Friday July 2 in Johannesburg. Swaziland is one of the determined soccer teams of HALFTIME!

Swaziland's HIV Conquerors is rehearsing every Sunday in preparation to HALFTIME's event on July 2 in Johannesburg. Photo: MSF

This small nation, South Africa’s nearest neighbour in the southern African region, and facing an even higher AIDS burden, lies due east of Gauteng province and its capital. The team will be bussing in to play—is this a secret motivational strategy, to bond en route via the road N17?

They’re already making bold claims.  Their name? “HIV Conquerors”! Their target? 15 goals in the day.  And they’ll have over a month’s regular practice under their belts.

Like many of the teams they’re a band of men and women living with HIV who’ve come together for the first time, to be part of HALFTIME and contribute to the call to donors to ramp up funding for treatment for HIV/AIDS.  They’re also here to show “that being positive and living a positive life means you can do everything,” and to share their experiences with other people living with HIV/AIDS from other countries.

Amongst them are also patients who have become MSF staff members, learning how to lead new patients along the pathway to treatment.

There’s three and a half weeks to go. We look forward to welcoming these courageous Swazis to South Africa!

For more information about MSF work in Swaziland, visit http://www.msf.org.za/Swaziland/

MSF Staff in Joburg

The World Cup spirit is felt everywhere here in Khayelitsha! Since I arrived a year ago from Brazil to work for MSF in this impoverished township near Cape Town, I have never seen the patients so proud as today! They come to the clinic wearing their yellow and green Bafana Bafana jerseys, so excited about their national team playing in the opening match today in Africa’s first ever and their very own World Cup. Football is the most popular sport in Khayelitsha and you can see children kicking a ball on almost every street corner! This sport is so central to these communities.

I often feel at home here, given the similarities between my country, Brazil, and South Africa. On Wednesday, we had a huge “vuvuzela break” during the lunch time. You couldn’t hear anything else but the blaring sound of vuvuzelas! Everybody keeps on asking: “Can you feel it?!” The excitement and patriotism of our patients really resonate through the sound of vuvuzelas!

In Africa alone, 500,000 children died because of AIDS in 2005. And today, we know that millions of African babies won’t live to see their second birthday. It’s a sad reality that none of us should forget. Nonetheless, the great sport event that kicks off today is a good opportunity to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS not only in South Africa but over the world as well!

Even if Bafana Bafana do not win the title, they will have proved how much energy people in this country can dedicate to a cause. I believe South Africa is making all possible efforts to win the battle against HIV/AIDS epidemic and this is really impressive. In Khayelitsha alone, we have 14,500 patients on antiretroviral treatment for HIV/Aids and hope to finish the year with 20,000 patients. The success of this township in its fight against the disease has been made possible thanks to the concerted effort of South Africans but also because of additional funds received from outside sources such as Global Fund. The concern now is that if funding dries up, these successes will be reversed and maybe the situation will worsen again.
South Africans have a burning passion inside them that can produce incredible changes. The World Cup has just highlighted this for me. I wish them all the best in keeping that passion alive through this long walk they have embarked on.

Yours truly,
Dr. Carolina Malavazzi Galvão

P.S. I am supporting Brazil and South Africa and will be very happy if one of my favourites win the trophy this year.

Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has been running an HIV/AIDS programme in Khayelitsha in partnership with City of Cape Town health authorities since 2000.

ABOUT EXTRA-TIME!

Extra-Time! is an internet blogging experience with first-hand accounts and stories of field workers, staff and patients of the international humanitarian medical organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), gathered and presented during the FIFA World Cup in South Africa, from June 7th to July 14th, 2010.

With Extra-Time! MSF aims to provide the worldwide audience with an alternate view on the first FIFA World Cup hosted in Africa and to chronicle the positive stories of perserverence in the Southern African region’s struggle to fight the dual epidemics of HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis.

In the coming weeks Extra-Time! will include narratives, photographs and short videos from countries where MSF field workers provide care to people living with HIV and tuberculosis including Malawi, South Africa, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and as well as other places in the world.

Information on HALFTIME!, an MSF event in the form of one-day soccer tournament involving people living with HIV as well as MSF which will be hosted in Johannesburg, South Africa on July 2nd, will also be featured. HALFTIME! is an initiative to raise awareness about the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the need to keep up international funding for antiretroviral treatment in developing countries.

DISCLAIMER
The opinions expressed in the Extra-Time! blog are those of the authors or the persons interviewed and can not be considered or quoted as MSF’s official position on the matters concerned.