Last week I had the privilege of traveling to Entebbe, Uganda for a meeting of the Canada-Africa Prevention Trials Network (CAPTN), which works to capacitate African organisations and individuals to carry out HIV prevention research. The CAPTN motto is, "African led, Canadian enabled."

It is a great pleasure for me to be able to contribute to this network, because I myself have a strong personal investment in both Canada (where I spent the first 25 years of my life) and Africa (where I have made my home for the past four years).

This was my first trip to Uganda and only my second to East Africa. I didn't get to see much of the country - it was all business and we were basically confined to our hotel for the whole three days. Fortunately the hotel overlooked the shore of the famous Lake Victoria, which is the source of the Nile River. The lake reminded me of North America's Great Lakes, but although some of the locals were swimming, I didn't venture in for fear of crocs, bilharzia, and whatever other unknown hazards could be lurking. We had plenty of entertainment on dry land though, including traditional Ugandan dancing.

At the meeting we had the opportunity to hear from researchers from Uganda, Kenya, South Africa as they explained exciting collaborative HIV research projects that have been or are being carried out in these African countries with support from CAPTN and the collaboration and mentoring of Canadian researchers. We were able to strengthen existing research partnerships and build new ones.

I presented to the attendees about the WhizzKids United Health Academy, which was very well received. I also gave an overview of the research projects we have undertaken since 2008, which made it obvious that our research capacity has been growing rapidly since joining CAPTN one year ago. I was also able to contribute to the capacitation of fellow researchers by running a brief workshop on Probability and Statistics - my particular area of specialization. Stats skills are in short supply in Africa, as everywhere else in the world, and it sounded like there could be a need for a more comprehensive statistics workshop at a future network meeting.

All in all it was a very positive experience, both professionally and personally. It is very encouraging to see the excellent HIV prevention research being conducted in Africa by Africans, and I look forward to continue contributing to and learning from the CAPT Network.

At the end of November and early December I had the privilege to travel to two great HIV & AIDS conferences. The first was the Social Aspects of HIV & AIDS Research Alliance (SAHARA) Conference in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. There, I presented the results of an evaluation of our On the Ball programme in Northern eThekwini, which generated a lot of interest. The highlight of this conference, for me, was viewing a pre-screening of a new film called Inside Story which follows the life of a young soccer player as he tries to cope with the pressures of his career and life, including HIV.

After returning from Port Elizabeth, I headed straight off to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for the International Conference on AIDS and STI's in Africa (ICASA). This was a much larger conference with nearly 10,000 delegates from over 100 countries attending. I presented a 90 minute skills building workshop entitled, Quantitative Methods for Evaluating Behavioural HIV Prevention Interventions, which was attended by about 100 people and was very well received. I have identified that there is a skills gap in statistics within the field of HIV & AIDS research in Africa, and I hope that this workshop contributed to diminishing this gap. The notes from this presentation can be downloaded from our Downloads page.

I benefited greatly from attending this conference, partly because some of the leaders in the struggle against HIV & AIDS were present and I was able to hear a 'big picture' perspective on the epidemic. These leaders included former US President George W. Bush, UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibe, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, and numerous other dignitaries. Another reason I benefited from this conference was the chance to meet and network with people from many African countries about their projects and programmes. I made friends from many countries including Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, Côte D'voire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. I was also able to get to know Dr. Bob O'Neill better. Bob is the Chairman of the Canada Africa Prevention Trials Network (CAPTN) of which we are a member.

It was also my first time to visit East Africa so it was great to experience another African culture. The conference was very busy from dawn to dusk so I didn't have much chance for tourism, but was able to visit a local restaurant, a traditional market, as well as an Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

I want to extend my thanks to CAPTN as well as the sponsors of both conferences for covering my expenses and thus allowing me to attend these two enriching events. I have come back to Durban with a lot of new ideas, energy and contacts to follow up with, and am confident that these will ultimately translate into better programmes for the beneficiaries of WhizzKids United!

On October 13, I was accompanied by Ayanda, Beki, and Thuli from our partner organisation MCDI, and WKU Life Skills Trainers Phumlani and Sli, to two schools in Osindisweni, a picturesque rural area north of Durban, to run our outcome evaluation post-questionnaires. We drove through a very hilly area on dirt roads and I was thankful to have the bakkie (pickup truck for those unfamiliar with South African dialect).

We arrived at Ogunjini Primary School, where Phumlani and Sli had recently finished running the 'On the Ball' programme, and ran our post-questionnaire with one class in Grade 5, 6 and 7 - the same class sections that had completed the pre-questionnaire. There was a complication because both Grade 5 classes shared a single, crowded classroom, but only one class had been sampled to do the questionnaires. So we had to ask half the kids to either do homework quietly while we ran the questionnaire with the others!

I was impressed that the kids still remembered my name and what country I'm from, even though I had only met them once before, back in July when we did the pre-questionnaires. We were also impressed with the professional attitude and dedication of the staff at this school.

From there, we moved on to Mjoji Primary School, which was about to start the 'On the Ball' programme, to do pre-questionnaires. I felt that this school desperately needed a programme like ours because the school is very underresourced. The classrooms are so empty - basically just desks and a blackboard. In one class we found the teacher asleep. When I recall my primary school classrooms growing up in Canada, which were always well decorated and full of books, stationery, art supplies, etc., with a highly motivated, well-paid teacher, I realize how fortunate I was.

I think that the 'On the Ball' programme is bringing a taste of a better kind of education to these kids, and opening their eyes to the fact that learning is more than sitting in a desk staring at a blackboard. I hope we are opening kids' eyes to the fact that learning can be fun and can open the door to all kinds of opportunities in life.

From Monday to Wednesday last week, I had the opportunity to attend a meeting of the Canada Africa Prevention Trials Network in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. This network, which goes by the motto "African Led, Canadian Enabled," is designed to build a large capacity of African organisations to conduct research with a focus on HIV & AIDS prevention. WhizzKids United has been a member of the network since March 2011 and receives funding to grow the health care services at our Health Academy to the point where it can become a centre of research.

In attendance at this meeting were both social scientists and medical research scientists from Canada and South Africa, as well as health professionals from the WKU Health Academy. It was great to be part of the exchange of ideas and a number of exciting potential research projects were discussed.

As a Canadian who has been living and working in Africa for the past three years, I had insight into both the Canadian and African perspectives on the discussion which made it especially useful. It was also nice just to be around so many Canadians and be reminded of my roots!

We are very pleased to be part of the CAPTN Network and are looking forward to exciting research being carried out at the WKU Health Academy in the coming years which could lead to a breakthrough in HIV & AIDS prevention.

I moved from Canada to South Africa in June 2008 as a fairly naive 24 year old to work for a small charity called WhizzKids United. Of my parents and four siblings, only one had ever been outside of Canada and the USA, so it was rather unprecedented to pick up and move to Africa of all places. However, I felt the need to branch out and do something different with my life. I had also fallen in love with Africa from reading books about it and a four-month trip there the year before.

When I arrived in South Africa I was fresh out of graduate school with little work experience and even less life experience. I would like to say that the past three years have made a man of me. I feel blessed and thankful for all the experiences I've had in Africa: the warm and fascinating people I've gotten to know, the beautiful places I've seen, and the fulfilment that comes with working in the non-profit sector trying to build a better future for youth whose lives are at risk from an epidemic that has already ravaged their parents' generation.

The past three years have also been a period of growth and achievement for WhizzKids United: joining the streetfootballworld network, reaching 20,000 kids with our life skills programme, opening the WhizzKids United Health Academy, winning the Global Sports Forum award as 'Best Sport for Health' project, being endorsed by the UN Office on Sport for Development and Peace, being awarded a Football for Hope Centre by FIFA. I've been privileged to see all of this achieved by a small and ever-changing but ever-dedicated team of staff and volunteers both local and international.

Whenever I have the chance to visit Canada, family and friends ask when I'm coming home. I usually give an evasive answer because the truth is I have no idea. "Home" is where God needs me to be at any given time, and right now I believe he still needs me to be here in South Africa.

Last week was an exciting week for the WhizzKids United staff in both Durban and Edendale.   The week was spent preparing for the Mixed Gender League Finals to be held at the pitch in front of the WhizzKids United Health Academy.   I had a chance to prepare some of the materials given out to the participants of the Mixed Gender League such as framed pictures for each team and trophies for the winners! 

Thursday was a ridiculously hot day out in Edendale, but the Durban office staff stuck it out and managed to take some awesome photos and videos of the teams playing in the two final games: Muzi Thusi v. Henryville and Esigodini v. Mthethomusha.  There was singing, dancing, laughing and, of course, football playing to be had by all.  The league also dedicated a moment of silence for our fallen Mixed Gender League player, Nkosinathi Hlela.  Even though there were moments of mourning, there were many moments of joy.  Supporters cheered on their favourite teams during each and every minute of the game.  After a hard fought battle, Esigodini secured a win and have been named the League Champions – congratulations to Esigodini and each of the teams who showed up to play and show their support!

When the games ended and the cheers had settled, everyone sat down for a lovely lunch prepared by the Health Academy staff.  The day concluded with a very impressive performance by the WhizzKids United Health Academy Drum Majorettes followed by an impromptu dance party and the awards ceremony, with a passionate and enthusiastic key note speech from our very own Life Skills Trainer, Neli.  All in all, a perfect end to a beautiful day!

Africaid has just began field research for a study that has been in the making for over a year. After so much buildup and anticipation it is great to finally get things rolling! As the WhizzKids United Health Academy in Edendale will open its doors on June 1st, we are carrying out a baseline survey of a random sample of primary and secondary students in Edendale schools. In this way we hope to produce scientific evidence for the impact of the Health Academy, as well as identifying the needs of its target population so that we can better serve them.

The field researchers are Ms. Lungile Maziya, a research nurse from Edendale Hospital, and Ms. Zanele Khanyile, our own M&E Facilitator. Both of them are a lot of fun to work with, and are great at communicating with the kids.

One of the coolest things about this research is the way we collect data: kids enter the survey on mobile phones! Each question pops up on their screen and they choose their answer. Once they are finished, they hit "Submit" and the survey is instantly uploaded to our supplier′s server over the cellular network (and deleted from the phone)! This method has several advantages:
- No data entry!
- Environmentally friendly (no printing, no stapling, no paper waste)
- Data is more secure
- Respondents find the survey more engaging
- Best of all, respondents have greater privacy during the survey, as a phone screen is much easier to shield from prying eyes than a sheet of paper. If you imagine 40 kids in a cramped classroom answering the question, "How many sexual partners have you had in the past 6 months?" you will understand how important this added privacy is.

I am very grateful to Medical Research Council for their generous support by purchasing 50 Nokia handsets and allowing us to use them for research. The "Mobile Researcher" software and technical support has been provided by Clyral Creative Studios (). We are also thankful to the ten schools in the sample who all readily agreed to participate in the study at such a busy time of year!

Sanibonani sizwe (Hello world),

In Oli′s absence you′ll be hearing from me the next couple of weeks. We have been running WKU Life Skills Football Training at Clarence Primary School (the site of our head offices) for three weeks now and have completed three sessions: The Goal (which discusses the importance of goals to give purpose both to the game of football and to life), Obstacles-HIV (which talks about obstacles that stand in the way of goals, in football and in life, with a particular focus on HIV/AIDS as we must know all about the opposition in order to defeat it!), and Tactics - Make a Plan (in which kids develop a strategy for remaining HIV-free!)

It is going great, the kids at this school are very receptive and easy to work with. One of the activities in the third session was designed by myself, called yellow card - red card. It draws an analogy between a yellow card in football and being HIV positive, and between a red card in football and getting full-blown AIDS. I was worried that the analogy was too complicated to resonate with the kids but it actually worked quite well in this instance. They were really able to pick up on the point that being HIV positive is not "game over" but that you have to change your lifestyle, eating healthy and taking treatment, just as a footballer with a yellow card must change his tactics and play more conservatively to avoid getting a second yellow which equals a red - just as, if HIV progresses to AIDS, your immune system can no longer fight off infections and very soon it is game over.

Furthermore, we stressed that in life, no one blows a whistle and tells you that you have HIV - you have to get tested before you can know your status.

The programme is not running at the school this week because our staff are really busy with other things. Marcus and Paul are in Malmesbury (near Cape Town) this week training 20 youth workers recruited by Wester