Football for Health: Increasing physical activity levels and improving mental health and wellbeing of girls and women in Somalia

身体活动很重要，因为它可以降低患心脏病、2型糖尿病和某些类型癌症的风险。体育活动和伴随体育活动的社会参与也有利于心理健康和福祉。在索马里，女孩和妇女比男孩和男子更不活跃，特别是在城市地区。学校的体育不是义务教育，女孩入学人数少于男孩。此外，患有抑郁症的妇女人数高于男子。一项基层足球倡议提供了一个案例研究，可以为索马里兰可扩展的妇女体育干预措施的发展提供信息。哈尔格萨的索马里兰女子足球俱乐部于2016年由当地女孩和妇女成立，她们希望有一个安全的空间进行体育活动和社交活动。它提供社区足球课程和教练，并与社区合作伙伴合作组织锦标赛和体育节。它已被证明是受欢迎的;从6到50个女孩和妇女之间的13和45岁每周玩。然而，尚不清楚它影响到谁，以及它是否导致变化。我们还想知道更多关于它的潜在影响（积极和消极），它是如何工作的，它需要什么才能发挥最佳作用，以及什么会阻止它发挥作用。我们的目标是制定一项有效的干预措施，通过审查和完善这一“现实世界”的基层足球倡议，提高索马里女孩和妇女的体育活动水平，改善她们的心理健康和福祉。包括足球在内的体育方案在整个撒哈拉以南非洲被用作促进个人和社会发展的平台。尽管吸引了联合国和国际足联的巨额资金和支持，但这些举措往往侧重于男性，并没有在索马里兰广泛推广。此外，在低收入环境中，这种干预措施的证据基础很差，而在高收入环境中，足球干预措施的质量更高（如足球迷在训练中）。据我们所知，没有循证战略来改善索马里女孩和妇女的体育活动水平或心理健康和福祉，这项研究将与Gobanimo女子足球俱乐部的创始人共同制作，并将在哈尔格萨市区进行。它将分四个阶段实施。第一阶段：通过采访俱乐部创始人和成员来定义基层足球“干预”，以了解发生了什么活动以及如何进行。在第二阶段，我们将与非俱乐部成员的女孩和妇女举办研讨会，探讨参加体育运动的障碍，并采访利益相关者，以了解影响干预工作的条件。利益相关者将包括社区信仰和非专业领导人、父母、妇女和卫生组织、资助者和政策制定者。第三阶段：利用研讨会和访谈的信息，我们将与俱乐部的创始人和索马里女子足球裁判合作，制定新的干预措施，并进一步完善变革理论（即如何理解干预活动，以产生一系列有助于实现最终预期影响的结果）。我们还将确定衡量干预措施潜在影响的方法。在第四阶段，我们将听取持份者的意见，以作出调整和改善建议的干预措施。我们会看看这是否可以接受和可行。最后，我们将制定一份手册，以支持在新环境中实施干预措施，并在30名女孩和妇女中试行干预措施。在本研究结束时，我们将采取干预措施，增加身体活动，改善索马里女孩和妇女的心理健康和福祉。我们将在未来的可行性研究中，通过在新的社区和环境中测试干预措施来推进这一工作。

Being physically active is important as it reduces the risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and certain types of cancer. Both physical activity and the social engagement that accompanies sport activities are also beneficial for mental health and wellbeing. In Somalia, girls and women are less active than boys and men, especially in urban areas. Physical education in schools is not compulsory and there are fewer girls enrolled in school than boys. Furthermore, the number of women who have depression is higher compared to men. A grassroots football initiative offers a case study that can inform the development of a scalable women's sports intervention in Somaliland. Somaliland Women's Football Club in Hargeisa was established in 2016 by local girls and women who wanted a safe space for physical activity and socialising. It offers community football sessions and coaching and works with community partners to organise tournaments and sport festivals. It has proven to be popular; growing from 6 to 50 girls and women between the ages of 13 and 45 years playing weekly. However, it is not clear who it reaches and whether it leads to change. We would also like to know more about its potential impacts (positive and negative), how it works, what is needed for it to work best, and what stops it working. We aim to develop an effective intervention to increase physical activity levels and improve mental health and wellbeing of girls and women in Somalia by examining and refining this 'real-world' grassroots football initiative.Sport has been promoted as a way to encourage physical activity. Sport-based programmes, including football have been used across sub-Saharan Africa as a platform to promote personal and social development. Despite attracting huge funding and support from the UN and FIFA, such initiatives tend to focus on men and have not been rolled out extensively in Somaliland. Furthermore, the evidence base for such interventions in low income settings is poor, in contrast to higher quality evaluations of football interventions in high income settings (e.g. Football Fans In Training). To our knowledge, there are no evidence-based strategies to improve physical activity levels or mental health and wellbeing in girls and women in Somalia.This study will be co-produced with founders of Gobanimo Women's Football Club and will take place in Hargeisa, an urban area. It will be implemented in four phases. Phase 1: Define the grassroots football 'intervention' by interviewing club founders and members to find out what activities take place and how they are delivered. In Phase 2, we will conduct a workshop with girls and women who are non-club members to explore the barriers to playing sport and interview stakeholders to understand the conditions that affect how the intervention works. Stakeholders will include community faith and lay leaders, parents, women and health organisations, funders, and policy-makers. Phase 3: Using information from the workshop and interviews, we will work with the founders of the club and a Somali woman football referee to develop a new intervention and further refine the Theory of Change (i.e. how intervention activities are understood to produce a series of results that contribute to achieving the final intended impacts). We will also identify methods to measure potential impacts of the intervention. In Phase 4, we will get feedback from stakeholders to make adjustments and improve on the proposed intervention. We will find out if it is acceptable and feasible. Finally, we will develop a manual for supporting implementation of the intervention in new settings and pilot the intervention with 30 girls and women.At the end of this study, we will have an intervention for increasing physical activity as well as improving mental health and wellbeing of Somali girls and women. We will take this forward by testing the intervention in new communities and settings in a future feasibility study.