Taking aim at HIV/AIDS
Former Red Devils captain combines her love of sport and community service in Africa
by George Fitting ’10
January 2, 2010
Rachel Finan '09, with children in Malawi, is using her knowledge of soccer and commitment to international public service to combat HIV/AIDS.Barely four months after graduating
from Dickinson, Rachel Finan ’09 was in Lilongwe, Malawi, grooving with a crowd
of 4,000 to the music of popular artist Mafunyeta.
The performance was part of a larger, weekend-long Voluntary Counseling
and Testing (VCT) tournament and community sensitization event combining
soccer, music and HIV testing that Finan, former Dickinson’s women’s soccer
captain, helped organize as a volunteer for Grassroot Soccer (GRS).
GRS is an international nonprofit based in South Africa that seeks to
combat the HIV/AIDS epidemic by using soccer-related drills and activities to
spread awareness, address stigma and discrimination, build support networks and
provide opportunities for HIV/AIDS testing.
Finan is one of
two Americans volunteering for a year with the fledgling GRS Malawi program.
Her colleagues are one paid American staffer, a Malawian program manager and 21
Malawian GRS coaches. She was please to be assigned to the Malawi program, her
first choice, because of its newness and opportunity to have a larger impact on
the community.
Finan’s varied
Dickinson experiences positioned her well for her work in Africa.
She demonstrated a commitment to
community service by volunteering for three-and-a-half years as a mentor with
Dickinson Special Friends, seeking to establish friendships and deepen
communication with children and young adults with disabilities in the Carlisle
area. Fellow Kappa Kappa Gamma sister Brittany Borck ’10 describes her as
“friendly, smart, outgoing, down to earth, funny—a very genuine girl.”
Finan’s interest in public health was sparked when she participated in
the 2006-07 Venezuela Mosaic: Democracy, Development and the Bolivarian
Process, in which students studied contemporary social, economic and political
realities of Venezuela before visiting the country during the winter break and
pursuing individual research projects. Finan focused on the socially empowering
effects of free health care, education and sports opportunities provided for
the poor by the national Barrio Adentro program.
After taking African Politics, taught by Mark Ruhl ’70, professor of
political science, Finan became more aware of some of the specific humanitarian
issues in Africa. “The class was especially eye-opening to all the problems
that developing countries in Africa are facing and how many opportunities there
are to help mend some of them,” she said.
As an international-studies major with a concentration on Africa, Finan
studied in Botswana in the spring of her junior year. While there, she interned
with a local HIV/AIDS clinic that had a profound impact. “I knew I wanted to get
back to Africa some way or another,” she said.
Finan also enjoyed
an outstanding four-year career with the soccer team. When considering
post-graduation opportunities, she was drawn to the GRS program because of its
sports-based approach to the HIV/AIDS problem. “Finding some kind of work that
combined soccer and Africa seemed almost too good to be true,” she said.
Since Finan knew
she would have to cover her own airfare and living expenses, she began
fundraising while still at Dickinson. She organized a T-shirt sale and car wash
and wrote to friends and family seeking donations.
“Once people heard
about what I was doing, they started coming out of the woodwork,” she said.
“Thankfully, they were extremely, extremely generous.”
Most of her work with GRS has involved organizing VCT events like the
one in Lilongwe. “One thing that I really admire about GRS’ approach is that
they keep it as grassroots as possible. All of the coaches are local staff who
live—and often have grown up—in the community in which they work,” she said.
Although her
efforts have been rewarding, Finan is faced with the harsh reality of the
HIV/AIDS epidemic on a daily basis. The office where she works is in the same
building as the largest pediatric HIV-positive institution in Malawi, and she
passes a waiting room full of HIV-positive children on her way to work every
morning.
“The saddest part
is that the vast majority of the kids are HIV-positive through no fault of
their own—they were either born with it or were sexually abused,” said Finan.
“It’s a sobering way to start the day, but it puts a lot of things in
perspective and reaffirms why I go to work every day.”
Misconceptions about the disease are pervasive, she explains. Some of
the most common are the beliefs that anyone who is very thin or works for an
HIV organization has HIV, that HIV testing kits give people HIV and that people
can cure themselves by praying hard enough or by sleeping with a baby, an
albino or a disabled person. Soccer is one of the main reasons behind GRS’
success at quashing these rumors.
“As in most of
Africa, soccer is like a religion in Malawi, and if you can use it as a tool to
disseminate information it can be an extremely powerful and successful way of
getting your message across,” said Finan.
Despite the obstacles, Finan is optimistic about effecting real change.
“I understand that it’s usually in the form of small steps and that behavioral
change is hard to quantify,” she said.
Her work is making a difference. One weekend, for
example, two GRS events resulted in 800 people being tested. People who test
positive can seek free care, including drugs, to slow the impact of HIV on the
body. Those who test negative receive counseling to help them learn how to
remain HIV-free.
Next fall, after she
finishes her year of volunteering, Finan may seek a paid opportunity in Africa.
No matter what, she still plans to stay involved in African relations and
development work and will explore foreign-service and private-sector
possibilities or attend graduate school.
She views her
experiences at Dickinson as preparation for what she’s doing now. “Majoring in
international studies and just being at Dickinson in general was a huge help in
terms of making me globally focused and being up to date on what’s going on in
the world.”
For more information, contact Rachel Finan
at rachel.l.finan@gmail.com
or visit the GRS website at www.grassrootsoccer.org.
Soccer standout Rachel Finan ’09 battles deadly disease as a volunteer in Malawi. Photo credit: James Rasp