Blowing the Whistle campaign aligns with Varsity Sports

South Africa's influential anti-rape initiative, Blow the Whistle has announced its alignment with Varsity Sports, which will use its youth network to promote the initiative that strives to protect all woman and children of South Africa and empower them, by giving them their voices back.

The goal is to provide women and children with the platforms necessary to make them feel safe, starting with physical whistles and a state-of-the-art mobile app, both of which allow them to call for help. In educating the men and other citizens of South Africa to react to the call of need, the initiative is activating the community to ensure that those calls are not ignored.

Varsity Sports, along with its sponsors, Samsung, Famous Brands, Cell C, FNB and Edcon sees the top South African universities competing against each other in various sporting codes, showing off the brightest young talent and developing sport in the country. It offers an exciting platform for students and university teams to compete and for their campuses and supporters to get behind them.

A natural step

"The partnership between the two entities is one that is sure to make a tangible difference in the country," says Mike Rowley, Director of Blow the Whistle. "Sport is developed at grass roots level - unfortunately many of our problems are as well. Varsity Sports is making a positive difference in the development of sport at a grass roots level, so it is only a natural step to partner with it to make a positive difference in the lives of our youth off the field as well."

The partnership began in July with the Varsity Sports Explosive Mondays Varsity Football, which will run over the course of nine weeks, with two televised games per week.

"Varsity Sports is excited to dedicate a portion of the half-time talk to the initiative, in which the presenter will discuss Blow the Whistle with one of its ambassadors," explains Varsity Sports sponsorship executive, Trent Key. "Referees will also be sporting the Blow the Whistle logo on their jerseys."

Since inception last year, the campaign has rallied a team of celebrities, companies, agencies and partners who've pledged their support to this very worthy cause, including sporting names such as Ryk Neethling, Tsepo Masilela, Pat Lambie, Jonathan Kaplan, JP Duminy and many more. For more, go to www.whistle.co.za.