ISOP Zambia 2.24

The ISOP foundation - International Student Development Projects - is a Dutch non-profit organization that works togheter with partner organizations in, inter alia, Zambia, such as Sport in Action (SIA), to carry out development work through sport and recreational activities.

Sport In Action (SIA) is a non-governmental organization (NGO) whose purpose is to improve people’s quality of life through sport and recreational activities.

SIA Mission:
“Sport In Action shall endeavor to use sport and recreation as a tool to improve the quality of children’s lives by providing a programme that will bring about motivation, self-development, child protection and self-reliance through social and economic empowerment”.

Founded in 1998 and registered on 17/05/1999, SIA was the first Zambian sports NGO. Its membership comprises ex-sports men and women and administrators from varying careers and backgrounds.

SIA has recognised the fact that sport has a special attraction to young people as it offers opportunities for fun-play and physical challenges. Organised sport therefore has the potential to attract young people in a way that no other means of communication can match. SIA takes advantage of this power of sport as a mobilising tool to reach in and out of school underprivileged groups such as orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs), the girl child and youth in rural and urban areas.

As a result SIA focuses on delivering developmental programmes in communities and in non-government funded schools including facilitation of workshops for adolescent girls and organising festivals around sport, traditional games and fitness. SIA programmes bring about motivation, self-development and self-reliance through social, cultural, political and economic empowerment. All of these areas of delivery are underpinned with education on HIV & AIDS, child rights, alcohol and substance abuse. The life skills learned through the workshops aim to empower young people in Zambia to use sport and recreation as an outreach tool for communication, prevention, peer education on HIV & AIDS and the promotion of healthy life styles.