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As a team, we will be participating in the TackleAfrica Annual Football Marathon on Saturday 16th July 2011. 12 hours of football!!!

TackleAfrica is a charity run by a number of volunteer trustees and three members of staff. The money raised by the Football Marathon is used each year to educate young African adults how to stay safe from HIV. The success of the projects undertaken by the charity is down to the unique way in which it communicates with these young Africans....FOOTBALL!!! More details about the charity and its work can be found here - http://tackleafrica.org/category/what-we-do/

The reason the work of this charity is so, so important is the issue that it tackles - HIV. The facts and figures are shocking:

• About 7,000 people contract HIV every day – That’s 360 new infections during the time it takes to play a game of football;

• Since 1981, more than 25 million people have died of AIDS related illnesses, and some 33 million are currently living with HIV;

• There are over 12 million children orphaned by AIDS related illnesses in Africa;

• AIDS related illnesses kill more people in Sub-Saharan Africa than anything else;

• The United Nations Development Programme says HIV has had ‘the single biggest impact on human development in modern history’.

Quite simply, unless the youth of Africa are educated and encouraged to stay safe from HIV, the crisis will surely get worse. Football is seen as one of the most effective ways of communicating with the target audience, so the work of this charity is essential.

So, what are we doing to raise money?? We will be playing football for 12 hours, from 8am to 8pm. We will play with approximately 50 other teams, in around 600 matches, covering between 35 and 50km per player. So please be generous and support our efforts. It really is an important and worthy cause.

The Football Marathon in 2010 funded the training of over 500 coaches, working with 20,000 young people, in 6 African countries. So lets try and make this year even more successful!!

Thank You

 

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