Exploring new ways of engaging rural communities – Sporting activities

The year 2016 started on a high note, last year my thinking was challenged by my head of department who encouraged me to be innovative on how we can interactively engage communities about health research.  After so many years of engaging different groups of people it felt like we have exhausted all the channels we would make sure we have a strong relationship with communities in relation to health research. Personally I thought of sporting activities like football; I thought about how many Malawians like following the English Premier League and how they are able to mention most of the players in their teams they support yet they have never met them face to face.  Furthermore I noted how football brings people together especially in rural areas where people travel long distances to watch a football match due to lack of entertainment. Having  this idea I took advantage of the  working relationship that  I established with some of the community leaders in Chikwawa to explore the opportunities that  can be found in  sporting activities to  engage rural masses about health research.

Community leaders greeting players from the two villages

I decided to fund a football bonanza which involved 2 local football teams from separate villages, to me I considered the whole idea as something very small but  in the 2 communities it was something so great and valuable. From what I heard the 2 teams started preparing for the game a month before the actual day and messages about the game were circulating in all the surrounding villages. On the actual day many people from the surrounding villages gathered.

According to my observation I noted football is one of the activities that we can use to reach people about health research, many of the community members gathered to watch the game. This meant that community mobilization was automatically done, there would be no need of coercing them to come and listen to the messages rather in this case the message would be attached to football.  Considering how this whole function went I  observed the importance of using already existing channels to engage communities like this one; people love football and I think it would be easy for them to understand science if its attached to it.