Grassroot Soccer Zambia

19/08/2026

SKILLZ Girl/Guyz Training – Katete District
For four days, Katete District became a hub of learning and empowerment as 14 community Coaches 7 SKILLZ Girl Coaches and 7 SKILLZ Guy Coaches took part in a training led by Grassroot Soccer Master Coaches
The training followed a request from the Peace Corps, which partnered with GRS to strengthen the capacity of local young people to implement SKILLZ health interventions in the Mzima community.
Equipped with the SKILLZ curriculum, Coaches gained practical facilitation skills and the confidence to engage adolescents and young people with accurate information on HIV prevention, Sexual and reproductive health, Gender and Mental Health coping strategy.
This collaboration marks an important step toward expanding access to quality health education in Katete District ensuring more young people are reached with the knowledge to make healthy, informed decisions.
💚 Empowered Coaches, empowered communities.
Shout out to our amazing GRS SKILLZ coaches!
Well done, Harrison Tembo and Maclean Mundalila for representing Grassroot Soccer with excellence during the four-day Peace Corps coaches' training in Katete District, Eastern Province.
we're proud of you!
GrassrootSoccer

17/08/2026

THROWBACK POST:
Copperbelt SKILLZ Plus Coaches Training – A Success!
Grassroot Soccer successfully conducted a joint training of 24 SKILLZ Plus Coaches from Ndola and Kitwe District respectively. The training was held in Ndola District from the 20th–24th July 2026. The training equipped Coaches with the knowledge, skills, and confidence needed to effectively deliver the SKILLZ Plus curriculum for adolescents and young people living with HIV.
Training Overview
Over five days, Coaches gained comprehensive understanding of:
✅ The SKILLZ Plus curriculum
✅ Facilitation techniques
✅ Adolescent-friendly service delivery
✅ HIV treatment literacy
✅ Child protection and safeguarding
✅ MEL fundamentals
✅ Effective communication skills
A true highlight of the training was the safe, supportive space created for Coaches to share their personal journeys. Many opened up about the real challenges they've faced such as stigma, disclosure, ART adherence, and navigating their treatment paths. These testimonies enriched the learning experience, fostered mutual support, and reinforced the powerful role of peer mentorship in improving treatment adherence and psychosocial well-being.
Together, we're building a stronger network of Coaches ready to change lives on and off the field.

12/08/2026

Different Contexts, Common Aspirations | International Youth Day 2026
Young people may grow up in different communities, face different challenges, and have different experiences but they share common aspirations: to be heard, to feel supported, to stay healthy, to achieve their goals, and to have the opportunity to shape their own futures.
At Grassroot Soccer, we believe that creating opportunities for young people starts by meeting them where they are
Through our SKILLZ Health programmes, we use the power of soccer to create safe and engaging spaces where adolescents can build life skills, access accurate health information, develop confidence, and connect with trusted Coaches with Mentors. Our work addresses pressing health issues with SRHR, HIV and Mental Health.
In line with the theme and focus area, building future-ready skills through positive youth development remains at the core of our work.
Whether a young person is on a soccer pitch in any part of the country, their context may be different but their aspirations matter equally.
This International Youth Day, we celebrate young people not simply as leaders of tomorrow, but as today's changemakers.
Different contexts. Common aspirations. One Goal: A Healthier and More Empowered generation of young people.

06/08/2026

Grassroot Soccer was honored to participate in the One World, One Game, One Goal event

on the United Nations lawn in New York City, leading youth through soccer-based mental health
activities from our MindSKILLZ curriculum.
Held just two days before the FIFA World Cup Men's Final, the event celebrated football as a
powerful catalyst for youth mental health. It brought together youth advocates, changemakers,
policymakers, and leaders from the public and private sectors to champion football as a scalable
and inclusive tool for promoting the mental health and well-being of young people around the
world.
Among the participants was K***a Mwiitwa, Grassroot Soccer Zambia's very own Youth
Engagement Champion, who proudly represented Zambia and joined fellow youth leaders in
advancing conversations on youth mental health through sport.
A heartfelt thank you to , , , and
for transforming the UN lawn into a Football for Well-being field, and to for
making this pivotal moment ahead of the World Cup Final a powerful platform for youth mental
health and well-being.

05/08/2026

Engaging communities ensures support for adolescents

Grassroot Soccer, partnered with the Ministry of Health to hold a community dialogue meeting at Chainda Urban Clinic in Chongwe. Together with communities, we explored barriers around HIV status disclosure and devised solutions to enable adolescents to feel supported. The community dialogue with parents, guardians and adolescents, helped to shape and guide ways in which adolescents' health can be prioritised in their homes and communities. We are happy that communities continue to remain our biggest allies in creating an enabling environment for adolescents' health and well-being, and we are confident that strengthened community health systems that help adolescents stay healthy, informed, and empowered.

04/08/2026

Bringing our expertise in adolescent health and youth programming to the Eastern Province adolescent Health Indaba.

Grassroot Soccer (GRS) Zambia participated in the Eastern Province Adolescent Indaba held on 28th and 29th May 2026, which brought together adolescents, Government line ministries representatives,civil society organizations, health professionals, and community leaders to discuss issues affecting the health and wellbeing of young people.
At Indaba, we continued to build visibility of the impact of our SKILLZ Health programming, a sport based intervention that utilises a youth led approach providing adolescents with life saving sexual reproductive health and mental health information and connecting them to health services.
Since 2019, GRS has been delivering its SKILLZ programme to adolescents across seven ( 7) districts of Eastern province. Our participation at the Indaba, also enabled us to bring our expertise in adolescent health programming and youth engagement , to support the Ministry of Health in Eastern province, in the development of a consolidated workplan for adolescent SRH and MH. Our participation through our Programme Coordinator, Zuya Yamba, helped to showcase how fun and youth led adolescent health programming, can help in transforming the adolescent health landscape.

31/07/2026

Supporting SKILLZ Coaches to deliver better through Coach Support Visits
To ensure our SKILLZ Coaches are better supported to reach more adolescents with life-saving health information, services and mentorship there need for healthier lives. Our team conducted Coach Support Visits (CSVs) at Monkolo Secondary School in Chilanga District, where we provided onsite support for our SKILLZ Coaches, on data capturing and programme quality delivery.
We are confident that our investments in CSVs continue to boost capacities of SKILLZ Coaches to deliver our youth led and play based Sexual Reproductive Health (SRH) and Mental Health (MH) programmes, while at the same time offering one on one mentorship as part of Positive Youth Development framework. One on one mentorship with SKILLZ Coaches, also helped us understand beyond their roles what specific areas of their lives needed support to ensure an holistic approach to addressing needs of our frontline volunteers.
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29/07/2026

Bringing our expertise in adolescent health and youth programming to the Eastern Province adolescent Health Indaba.

Grassroot Soccer (GRS) Zambia participated in the Eastern Province Adolescent Indaba held on 28th and 29th May 2026, which brought together adolescents, Government line ministries representatives,civil society organizations, health professionals, and community leaders to discuss issues affecting the health and wellbeing of young people.
At the Indaba, we continued to build visibility of the impact of our SKILLZ Health programming, a sport based intervention that utilises a youth led approach providing adolescents with life saving sexual reproductive health and mental health information and connecting them to health services.
Since 2019, GRS has been delivering its SKILLZ programme to adolescents across seven ( 7) districts of Eastern province. Our participation at the Indaba, also enabled us to bring our expertise in adolescent health programming and youth engagement , to support the Ministry of Health in Eastern province, in the development of a consolidated workplan for adolescent SRH and MH. Our participation through our Programme Coordinator, Zuya Yamba, helped to showcase how fun and youth led adolescent health programming, can help in transforming the adolescent health landscape.

20/07/2026

OH!!!
Check out this video how Bill Gates recognizes Grassroot soccer's work through our Youth Engagement Champion K***a Mwitwa Gilberts.

13/07/2026