Wheaton Academy has been involved in responding to the issues of poverty and AIDS ravaging sub-Saharan Africa for the last five years. The school's work had been focused in one community named Kakolo Village where about one in every four people is HIV positive and the average life expectancy is 34 years of age. There is a significant orphan population in the community and the average family lives on less than $300 per year. The school has raised, through different student led fundraisers and projects, over $500,000 to help create a new future for the children of this village through a strategic partnership with relief organization World Vision. The funds raised have helped to build the first ever schoolhouse in the community, a new medical facility that helps to treat and provide medications for those suffering from AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, and other diseases while also providing the means to help prevent the transmission of the HIV virus from mothers to their unborn children, clean water wells, and many other things such as homes for orphan headed households, school supplies, food materials, and agricultural tools. The new schoolhouse is bringing education to over 600 children for the first time and the community is now able to help residents get tested for HIV, receive ARV medications, and live healthier and longer lives.
And in addition to this community development work, the WA boys soccer program has developed a deep connection with people in the community through the game of soccer. Soccer is beloved in Zambia and is played on dirt fields with rag balls and wooden goalposts in almost every village and city in the country. Players from WA have gone over and played matches against teams from five different communities throughout the country, and soccer is often a tool that helps World Vision to promote AIDS education and helps to teach children values and life skills for the future. The WA teams have been overwhelmed by the passion and level of skill present in the soccer players they have matched up against in Zambia. The WA team has collected thousands of soccer balls, jerseys, shoes, socks, shorts, and soccer equipment that has been distributed to players all over Zambia after clinics and matches. Players will often give their jerseys and a new ball to Zambia players in bare feet after a match is done. Many of these players have also directly benefited from the educational and medical resources brought to these communities.
Much of the soccer supplies have been donated by other Chicago area high school soccer teams and the Chicago Fire have been a huge supporter of this work and contributed all kinds of apparel (mostly red) and soccer equipment now being used in Kakolo Village. We loved passing out shirts, balls, and bags to the next generation of Fire fans in Africa! Even in the midst of great poverty and disease, there is incredible hope in the children of Africa. And soccer brings out the joy and life they have as they believe that their futures will be different and filled with life and health and happiness. One example of this was shown in the last trip Wheaton Academy recently took to Zambia in June when the community showed them a brand new soccer field they had made by hand as a place where their whole community would come to play and celebrate a game they love. The field is beautiful and even has "skybox" seating on top of some rather large anthills. They named their new soccer pitch "The Field of Hope" and dedicated it to Chip Huber, WA boys soccer coach and leader of the school's Zambia Project.
The needs are overwhelming in Zambia...and yet these soccer players and students from WA count it an amazing privilege to be friends with the people of Kakolo Village and will continue to work to help them build a new life filled with hope in the midst of great challenge. Many of the WA players look forward to their next chance to play on the "Field of Hope" in the future that is brighter and better for the children of Africa. For more information about the WA Zambia Project, you can check out the school's website at: http://www.wheatonacademy.org/d_zambiaproject.html. And for more information about the AIDS crisis in Africa, you can check out World Vision's website at: http://www.worldvision.org.
