Former Emory University women’s soccer player Talia Dweck (2006-09) has been busy since her graduation in May of 2010, having travelled to South Africa where she has worked as an intern for the Football Hope Center in Khayelitsha (the largest township in South Africa), a community center similar to what we in the United States know as the YMCA or YWCA.  One of the initiatives that the Football Hope Center conducts is the Grassroot Soccer Programs which also focuses on HIV prevention. 

One of the highlight’s of Talia’s stay in South Africa was helping arrange the logistics of the recent visit to Cape Town by Michelle Obama, wife of United States President Barack Obama,  where the First Lady became acquainted with the Grassroot Soccer program while meeting a number of young people associated with it.  

Early in her internship, she joined forces with a local coach to pilot an all-girls soccer league called  “Skillz Street”.   The league afforded girls from the township a chance to play soccer while teaching them about women empowerment, HIV prevention, and how to help out in their communities.  The league was a resounding success with over 500 young ladies going through the program.  

Another major project that she took on was the “Skillz Holiday Program”, helping young people channel their energies in a productive manner over a one-week school break and allowing an opportunity to learn about HIV prevention in the mornings and then play soccer in the afternoons. 

Prior to the end of 2010, Dweck played a significant role in the successful HIV Counseling and Testing Soccer Tournament where she and a colleague organized a two-day soccer tournament in the township that included about one thousand participants from ages 13 to 35.  One of the primary objectives was to get players, their friends and families tested for HIV at the tourney.  Despite facing some preconceived reluctance to testing by some township inhabitants, a plan was developed where teams could receive points for getting their teams tested which resulted in 922 people getting tested, surpassing the goal of 700.  It represented the biggest HIV Counseling and Testing Tournament that Grassroot Soccer in South Africa has ever done.   Recently, the tournament was run again on a smaller basis with over 450 people getting tested.

In Talia’s words, “This internship/ experience has been the most amazing opportunity EVER! The local people that I work with out in the township are some of the best people I have met in my life and they have become my family out here.”

And while her internship concludes in a few months, she will be staying on and extra month to train new interns.