Rumah Cemara Football Club (RCFC)
This project's parent organization is Rumah Cemara
It operates in Indonesia
It uses Football (Soccer)
Entered the Sport for Health Award
More about Rumah Cemara Football Club (RCFC)
Since 2005, RCFC has used football to tackle the social issue of HIV/AIDS in Indonesia, a country where it is rare to find HIV/AIDS education in schools, on billboards, or in the law. AIDS is still a controversial topic and PLHIV continue to be discriminated against. Society-wide education efforts on HIV/AIDS are oftentimes curbed by a conservative religious majority who are reluctant to discuss the primary drivers of HIV: injecting drug use and unprotected sex.
In Indonesia, 52.4% of injecting drug users are living with HIV, and this concentrated epidemic threatens to become a generalized epidemic in the years ahead if more effective prevention efforts are not established, both to decrease the amount of unsafe injecting drug use conducted, as well as the amount of unprotected sex in which this at-risk population engages.
RCFC successfully engages young Indonesians from these risk groups in weekly football matches, followed by informal education sessions on HIV/AIDS. Matches involve both PLHIV, whose self-confidence and health improve by playing regular matches, as well as players who live risky lifestyles but are unaware of HIV-related consequences. Their participation effectively decreases HIV transmission and the friendships formed with PLHIV teammates helps to halt the stigma towards PLHIV.