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

体育锻炼很重要，因为它可以降低心脏病、2型糖尿病和某些类型癌症的风险。身体活动和体育活动所伴随的社交活动也有益于心理健康和福祉。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。学校的体育课不是必修课，上学的女孩比男孩少。此外，与男性相比，女性患抑郁症的人数更多。一个草根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是由当地女孩和妇女于2016年成立的，她们希望有一个安全的空间进行体育活动和社交。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。事实证明，这项运动很受欢迎；13岁至45岁的女孩和妇女从6人增加到50人，每周一次。然而，目前还不清楚它能接触到谁，也不清楚它是否会带来变化。我们还想更多地了解它的潜在影响(积极和消极)，它是如何发挥作用的，它需要什么才能最好地发挥作用，以及是什么阻止了它的发挥。我们的目标是开发一种有效的干预措施，通过检查和完善这一“现实世界”的草根足球倡议，提高索马里女孩和妇女的身体活动水平，改善心理健康和福祉。体育已被推广为鼓励身体活动的一种方式。包括足球在内的以体育为基础的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，但此类倡议往往侧重于男性，并未在索马里兰广泛推广。此外，与高收入环境(例如，正在训练的足球迷)对足球干预措施的较高质量评估相比，低收入环境下此类干预措施的证据基础很差。据我们所知，没有基于证据的战略来改善索马里女孩和妇女的身体活动水平或心理健康和福祉。这项研究将与戈巴尼莫女子足球俱乐部的创始人共同制作，并将在城市地区哈尔格萨进行。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草根足球的“干预”，以找出发生了什么活动以及这些活动是如何进行的。在第二阶段，我们将与非俱乐部成员的女孩和妇女一起举办研讨会，探索从事体育运动的障碍，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宗教领袖、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，我们将与俱乐部创始人和一名索马里女足球裁判合作，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的潜在影响的方法。在第四阶段，我们将从利益相关者那里获得反馈，以对拟议的干预措施进行调整和改进。我们会看看这是否可以接受和可行。最后，我们将编写一份手册，支持在新环境下实施干预措施，并对30名女孩和妇女进行干预试验。在这项研究结束时，我们将进行干预措施，以增加索马里女孩和妇女的体力活动以及改善其心理健康和福祉。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点。

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.