The National Basketball Association of the US has teamed up with the UN's Children's Fund to distribute education materials and sports kits on HIV/AIDS to schools in seven provinces of China.
Dubbed as 'Skills for Life in a Box,' the kits contain interactive HIV/AIDS learning materials for teachers and peer educators to use in the classroom.Each kit also contains a basketball and other sports equipment to help young people learn about inclusion, empathy, teamwork and fair play.
Chief of UNICEF's HIV/AIDS Programme in China, Ken Legins explained that the project was an exciting way to mobilize young people to be more sympathetic towards those living with AIDS.
In China, there are over 840,000 people living with HIV/AIDS, but awareness remains particularly low among children and young people, UNICEF said.
A recent study found that 50 per cent of a sample of 2,500 young people between the age group of 15 and 20 could not explain how to protect themselves from HIV.
In addition, around half the young people in the same study believed that HIV could be transmitted by sharing chopsticks, the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) said.
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