CAF, Speak Up Africa mobilize football players against COVID-19
The Confederation of African Football (CAF) in partnership with Speak Up Africa have launched a social media challenge to raise awareness on proven COVID-19 prevention methods.
The partnership, part of the Stay Safe Africa campaign, is a new online challenge dubbed #19KickUpsAgainstCovid19.
As part of the challenge, African football legends and influential players are inviting their peers and everyone to participate in the challenge by recording a video of them doing 19 kick-ups and sharing it on social media.
Ahmed Hassan (Egypt), Perpetua Nkwocha (Nigeria), Joseph Yobo (Nigeria), Karim Haggui (Tunisia) and Trésor Lomana Lua Lua (DRC) have already responded. And any user of social networks can take their turn to spread the message of prevention and “barrier gestures” against the coronavirus.
CAF Deputy General Secretary, Anthony Baffoe, has also participated in the challenge, as CAF lends its influential voices, clubs, and legends to the campaign to help protect one billion Africans from COVID-19.
“Football brings together so many people from different backgrounds, nationalities and languages, and we hope that this social media challenge will bring people together in the same way,” said Anthony Baffoe.
“Even though the football season has been put on hold, we must all continue to come together, with distance, and fight the spread of this disease and misinformation.”
Stay Safe Africa, launched by Dakar-based advocacy tank Speak Up Africa, brings together partners to work towards a common goal of saving lives by increasing investments and awareness to protect the continent from this new threat while ensuring access and treatment from other ongoing health threats.
The Continent had 203,899 confirmed cases of coronavirus on Thursday 11 June. Covid-19 has already claimed the lives of 5,530 people on the continent, according to the African Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. The countries most affected by the epidemic are South Africa (53,000 cases), Egypt (36,800), Nigeria (13,500), Algeria (10,400), Ghana (10,200), Cameroon (8,700) and Morocco (8,530).
