Major League Soccer’s Kansas City Wizards to Play in Nkosi Johnson Charity Soccer Tournament for AIDS Foundation
Kansas City's Major League Soccer team today is scheduled to travel to Johannesburg, South Africa, for the Nkosi Johnson International Soccer Challenge to help raise money for the Nkosi Johnson AIDS Foundation, the Kansas City Star reports. On the two-week trip, the Kansas City Wizards will train and play three games against South African teams, as well as tour Nkosi's Haven, a refuge and care center for HIV-positive children and women (Luder, Kansas City Star, 2/2). Nkosi was born HIV-positive in 1988, received an AIDS diagnosis two years later and died in 2001 from AIDS-related complications at age 12 (Luder, Kansas City Star, 2/2). Nkosi was posthumously awarded the World's Children's Prize for the Rights of the Child, established four years ago by the Swedish Children's World Organization to recognize individuals who "fight for children's rights." Nkosi, whose mother also died of AIDS-related causes, and his foster mother Gail Johnson established Nkosi's Haven, a center where low-income women with AIDS can live with their children for free. In choosing Nkosi, the selection committee called him a "role model for children with AIDS and for the healthy children whom he taught not to be afraid of children with HIV/AIDS and to respect them" (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 4/11/02).
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