The Valparaiso University men’s soccer team closes out its preseason action Monday evening as it makes the short trip east to take on Notre Dame at 4 p.m. CT. The Crusaders are proud to team up with the Fighting Irish for their annual match to benefit Grassroot Soccer (GRS), an international non-governmental organization that uses the power of soccer to educate, inspire and mobilize communities against the spread of HIV. Admission to the game will be free with donations being accepted, 100% of which will go to GRS.

Information on Grassroot Soccer

Mission: Grassroot Soccer uses the power of soccer to educate, inspire, and mobilize communities to stop the spread of HIV.

Vision: A world mobilized through soccer to create an AIDS free generation.

Strategy: To achieve our mission, we continuously improve our innovative HIV prevention and life-skills curriculum, share our program and concept effectively, and utilize the popularity of soccer to increase our impact.

Tactics

1. To continually improve our innovative, culturally sensitive and fun ‘Skillz’ curriculum.
2. To effectively share our curriculum and concept with local implementing partners, allowing us to achieve scale in a sustainable way while making use of local capacity and infrastructure.
3. To empower local community role models (professional soccer players, youth sport coaches, teachers, peer educators, etc.) with the tools to educate the youth in their communities.

Capability

With an annual budget of $8 million, 75 employees and over 500 volunteers in South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe and the United States. GRS delivers its Skillz interventions to youth between the ages of 13-18 every day across this geography and regularly hosts training events for staff and volunteers.

GRS’s activities are divided two areas: global activities and in-country activities. Globally, GRS focuses on curriculum development, measurement and evaluations, strategic development and financial management. In-country, our teams execute on the GRS and partner funded programs managing all aspects required to fulfill our mission and satisfy the funders’ financial and programmatic needs. In addition, outside GRS’s three core countries (South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe), the global team provides technical assistance to implementing partners who deliver Skillz interventions. GRS’s global team identifies partners capable of sustaining a football based HIV prevention program, matches them with funders, provides in-country training and ongoing technical assistance and assists in the overall capacity building of these organizations.

Through these activities, GRS engages hundreds of young role model educators (coaches, teachers and peer educators) on a part time or volunteer basis in several African countries.

Funding

Grassroot Soccer’s funding continues to come from multiple sources, including individuals, corporations and foundations. Visit our Supporters page (grassrootsoccer.org/partners) to see our great funding partners. GRS is actively soliciting long-term support from all three of these groups, learn more about how you can help support GRS.