Sport is being seen by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) as a key vehicle through which information on HIV/AIDS can be taken to young people and as such UNICEF is teaming up with the Guyana Cricket Board and UNAIDS to target youngsters between the ages of six and 21.

This will be done through a project titled "Coaching for a healthy lifestyle" and will focus on using 22 cricket coaches drawn from the three counties of Guyana namely, Demerara, Essequibo and Berbice, to get information on HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment options and the overall adoption of healthy lifestyles to young cricketers.

"We have recognized the immense potential cricket and coaching in particular has in shaping the values of young people because cricket has a large following" said Geoffrey Ijumba, UNICEF Officer in Charge and Sub-Regional Advisor on HIV/AIDS at a media conference to launch the programme.

Emphasizing that sport cannot sit idly by and hope that other sections of society carry the HIV/AIDS fight, Ijumba said sporting bodies must play a role and envisions this pilot project being successful as "coaches can motivate and have tremendous influence on young people."

President of the GCB, Chetram Singh, said back in May 2006, the GCB together with two other sporting organizations joined with UNICEF and the Ministries of Health, Education and Human Services to promote sport as a healthy lifestyle option for young people.

That campaign was called "Unite for children, Unite against Aids" and Singh said since then his organization has been committed to raising HIV/AIDS awareness levels among young people especially those that were vulnerable.

"During the recent ICC/CWC 2007 event, the GCB with support from UNICEF in partnership with Scotia Bank and the West Indies Cricket Board executed a Kiddies Cricket programme targeting primary school children," Singh said.

He added that selected national coaches had been engaged since then in a combination of knowledge and communication skills-building sessions focusing on HIV and AIDS through a project called 'Bowling out HIV.' Project coordinator for 'Coaching for a healthy lifestyle' Colin Stuart said the target group and beneficiaries of the programme would be children, adolescents and young people aged six to 21 years old within cricket clubs but the focus would be on the nine to 21 age group.

The objectives of this project are to equip national coaches with the communication skills and materials needed for the effective use of the locally adapted cricket and HIV/AIDS manual, to ensure young players have accurate information and knowledge of various aspects of HIV prevention, care and treatment and to promote positive, healthy lifestyles among children and adolescents.

The session for the training of the coaches will run from July 19 to August 24 and some of the activities include the development of a communication strategy for and with national coaches using the locally adapted cricket and HIV coaches' manual, and the development of monitoring and evaluation checklists for use by the coaches.

This should play a key role as the project is initially for three months and Ijumba said both short and long term analyses will be carried out to determine the success of this pilot programme with a view to spreading it to other sport disciplines such as football.