June 27, 2001|By John Murphy | John Murphy,SUN FOREIGN STAFF
ORANGE FARM, South Africa - The first time Michael Scholl brought a basketball into this poor black township, most children had never even touched, let alone dribbled, one. Early experiments with the new sport resembled rugby more than basketball, as the children piled onto whoever had the ball.
But nearly two years later, this township has made the game its own.
Township teams go by names like "The Contraceptives," "Clean Hands," and "The Hygienics." The backboards are emblazoned with the message: "Love Life." At courtside, coaches like Scholl are just as likely to advise players on protecting themselves from sexually transmitted diseases as on perfecting lay-up shots.
And off the court, Scholl's players eagerly dispense frank and explicit advice about how to avoid AIDS.
"I tell them you can use a condom or masturbate," Smanga Mnisi, a 15-year-old boy from Orange Farm, says without a blush.
In South Africa, where one in four adults is HIV-positive, health and community workers are scrambling to prevent the spread of AIDS among the next generation. The virus here is increasing the fastest among 15- to 20-year- olds; experts predict that at the current rate of infection, nearly half of all children under 15 will die from the virus in the next five to 10 years. For Mnisi, that means that half of his playmates will be dead before 2010.
The statistics were frightening enough for Scholl, a Baltimore-based attorney, that he quit his law practice and dedicated his efforts to fighting AIDS in South Africa.
A former college player and professional player in Portugal, Scholl is director of the basketball programs for Lovelife, a nationwide AIDS prevention campaign using radio, newspapers, television, billboards, dancing, music - almost anything - to get its message out. The Lovelife program is sponsored by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Lovelife's basketball program employs a carrot-and-stick approach to sex education. Organizers dangle free coaching and court privileges before children in exchange for their participation in sexual health classes and homework study sessions.
And the game itself has a thing or two to teach about getting through life, Scholl says.
"There's the physical and mental conditioning of basketball. The strong work ethic, discipline and sense of teamwork. They learn that the team is not just the five players on the court but the five players on the bench. When one person suffers, they all suffer," says Scholl, 31, who stands 6 feet 6 inches tall and looks like he uses Allen Iverson's barber.
For now, prevention programs like Scholl's may be the best and only hope for South Africa to reduce the spread of AIDS. After a highly publicized fight to gain access to cheap, lifesaving AIDS drugs, the South African government has said that it cannot afford to pay for such treatment. Only the wealthiest South Africans can buy the necessary drugs on their own, leaving the majority of the 4.7 million people infected with the virus with few options.
Orange Farm, about 15 miles south of Johannesburg, is a collection of tin-roofed shacks and crooked dirt streets where nearly half of the residents are jobless. The basketball court serves as almost the only public recreation area for the township's 15,000 children. Alongside is the Lovelife Youth Center, a purple two-story building where children can come for checkups, use computers, learn to dance, pick up condoms and talk to counselors.
The center's goal is to attract children like Sipho Tsase, a shy, gangly 12-year-old with wide brown eyes, who smiles nervously when asked about AIDS. Like many of his elders, he's not quite sure what the virus is all about. The stigma attached to AIDS here makes it an awkward topic that is rarely discussed.
But Lovelife encourages South Africans, as it proclaims through its slogan, to "talk about it."
Seventeen-year-old Zanele Diniso, one of the basketball players from Orange Farm, says she had unprotected sex with her boyfriend last year and ran to the doctor in a panic. She tested negative for AIDS, but remains frightened. "I'm abstaining from now on," she says. "It's 100 percent safe."
A survey commissioned by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation found that one in five South Africans ages 12 to 17 had their first sexual experience at age 12 or younger. The survey also found that among teen-agers, sex is often used in exchange for money, drinks and food. And although about 90 percent of the youth surveyed were aware of the virus, some believe in such misperceptions as having sex with a virgin cures AIDS.
