Channy Finds Fulfilment in ISF’s All-Abilities Programme
Channy Finds Fulfilment in ISF’s All-Abilities Programme
ISF Cambodia’s Sport For All Abilities project is designed to be a safe haven where those with disabilities and lifelong illness can enjoy community building through sport. For us, providing and advocating for care for those stigmatised by society should be universal. Unfortunately, sometimes marginalised persons still meet with extreme hardship. As with the case of Channy*, a player living with HIV in our Football Programme. She was born carrying the virus and abandoned at the hospital by her parents. Fortunately, she and some other affected children were taken in by Bright Hope Cambodia. This non-profit organization provides them with education, medicine, and social care.
Channy has spent the rest of her life surrounded by a support system of social workers and a close circle of HIV-affected friends. While she enjoyed a strong community and received plenty of encouragement from Bright Hope staff, she struggled to balance her medical treatment and education. Due to her medications’ adverse side effects, Channy found herself unable to keep up with her lessons and quit school at grade 9. After a prolonged absence from learning, she’s now learning cosmetology through a salon internship.
During her break from education, Channy began playing football to help improve her health. She started by playing casual games with her friends. Still, she couldn’t see any possibilities to take her skills to the next level without any proper training. Fortunately, in 2016, ISF started a partnership with Bright Hope Cambodia, and Channy was selected to join the team as an attacker. Now she can join regular training every week with a dedicated ISF coach and competes in football events organized by ISF.
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Channy credits football with improving her communication skills both with her team and with new people. It also helped her with stress management. And competitions like ISF’s All Abilities Event gives her an opportunity to make new friends while playing alongside other Sport for All Abilities participants as well as hundreds of other able-bodied players.
Last year, the 20-year-old started working as a part-time coach with ISF. Becoming a professional coach has always been her dream, and working with ISF is one step away from realizing that dream. Football has taught her to never abandon her goals and encourages others living with HIV to do the same. She stresses them to, “Please take your medicine regularly and don’t give up on taking it despite the side-effects. Also, play sports because it helps improve both your physical and mental health.”
