Projects and the like

A bit about my organization and projects. Fair warning, I rambled on this one.

Ramotshinyadi HIV/AIDS Youth Guide was started by Fhatuwani (the director and my supervisor) in 2001 as a youth-based organization. Since then it has grown significantly and currently provides services to many households in nine different villages.

Our main services are:
Home-Based Care [HBC] -where our forty-six carers visit needy families in their homes to provide case management, counseling, and health referrals.
HIV Prevention – we plan and carry out large-scale HIV Counseling and Testing [HCT] campaigns in our villages and provide HIV prevention talks at various venues.
Orphans and Vulnerable Children [OVC] services – we run a drop-in center at the organization's office where over 200 OVCs are given two meals per day (before and after school), educational support, and a safe place to play with their friends.

We have seven full-time staff members at the main office, and the forty-six carers in our village and the eight others. The office gets extremely busy when everyone is back at the end of the month for reporting. The carers love to give me grief about my lack of Sesotho and XiTsonga. I would give them grief back, but I don't speak SeSotho or XiTsonga well enough. Hmm.

At present, the org is five pre-fab trailers arranged in a square (one, my computer lab trailer, is tucked away behind another) with a courtyard in the middle for waiting clients and eating/playing kids. Soon, though, construction on our permanent facility will be done. It will have eight offices and a large hall for the kids, meetings, dogs playing poker, whatever. The walls are up and the guys are almost done putting up the wood framework for the roof. So far as has been explained to me, all that is left is to slap some tin on the wooden framework and put in electrics. When I first arrive the foundation was still being poured. Not bad for four marginally trained kids (they are between 18 and 22) who live in tents next to the site.

As time moves slowly here, it has taken some time to get programs up and running. But things are starting to move along.

I set up a seven-computer lab at the drop-in center for orphans and vulnerable children that I am using to teach typing, MS Office Programs, and educational math software to the kids and some community members. Currently have four different two-hour classes each week. Today a co-worker, Phindile, the OVC supervisor, told me that the semi-younger (Grades 5-8) kids want in, so I may be adding one or two more. Woof. And here I thought Peace Corps would be a horribly paid two-year vacation.

I also just got a weekly HIV wellness class and support group going at the local clinic with the help (and translation skills) of a co-worker, Kaizer, our HIV Prevention manager. People on ARV treatment come once a month on their specific week on Thursdays, so we have a different group each week of the month. The program will reach 80-90 HIV+ community members each month. Today we had 25 people show up and we managed to get a really good conversation going about HIV and pregnancy and serodiscordant couples (where one partner is infected and the other isn't). The group members are really interested and suggested about fifteen different topics to discuss at later meetings. Time to get going on making powerpoints and developing a curriculum! We are hoping, once the kinks are worked out, to expand to four or five different clinics in nearby villages.

As there will be four different groups, I pitched the idea of naming each one to the group today, thinking that they would come up with something like "Word of Life" or "Health and Wellness" (in Sotho, of course), as seems to happen with support groups here. Instead I got, "Well, since we meet the first week of the month, why don't we call ourselves 'Group 1'." Can't wait to make group t-shirts! Ah well, it will be easier to remember which one is which this way.

I also just purchased (grants take forever and it only costs $14 for 100 planks) a ton of planks and will start construction of book shelves (if only I still had my Jesus beard!) for the community library next week. We had books donated (about 8 large boxes) by Books for Africa through the Peace Corps office and have another 20lbs coming in a month or three from BookAid, an organization in Connecticut. Really excited to open it up.

Also going to use some of the wood to build myself a table, bookshelf, and shelving for my clothes. Living with just a bed and two plastic chairs makes things a bit difficult.

I'm also working on planning a male-focused HIV Counseling and Testing (HCT) campaign in conjunction with a soccer tournament. There is a field right next to the org, and there have been a few hundred people at previous tournaments. Getting men to test is extremely difficult due to stigma and 'strong man' cultural norms, so I figured disguising it as a soccer thing might get better results.

I am still plugging away at the Primary school computer lab, but those things are so riddled with viruses that it will be a few months before I anything will be operational. Something to work towards, at least. And when it is done I can start training Alphus, the Grade 7 & 8 Sotho teacher, who is extremely interested in computers, on how to run classes. He will hopefully continue any classes I start after I am gone. Hopefully.

A few other Peace Corps volunteers and I are busy planning a week-long girls empowerment camp for 50 young girls. The camp, based of the Girls Lead Our World (GLOW) model, will encourage young women to become active citizens by building their self-esteem and confidence, increasing their self-awareness, and developing their skills in goal setting, assertiveness, and career and life planning. It will also be a constant dance party and a ton of fun.

I'm also working with seven local 20-somethings who currently run the small organic garden next to the org. They were given 30 hectares (~74 acres) by the tribal authority to create a larger organic farm. Once we get estimates for digging a bore hole (water is a huge, huge problem here) and basic start up costs, I am going to write a grant for them. Then we dig. We obviously won't start with all 30 hectares, but the hope is to start with one, raise money by selling produce in Ramotshinyadi and nearby villages, and then expand. Rinse and repeat. We are also going to try to link up with some grocery stores in Tzaneen. Hopefully one of them will want locally-grown organic produce from a non-profit community organization. Hopefully.

I've also made contact with Global Vision 2020. They are an international NGO that provides training and supplies for - you guessed it - vision correction. Access to optometrists is non-existent in the village, and many people suffer from poor vision. The awesome part of GV2020 is that they have latched onto self-refraction technology. Self-refraction lenses are self-adjustable, so once need for corrective lenses is established, the wearer can be trained on how to adjust them and effectively cut out the need for expensive and, again, non-existent optometry. Go here for more info on the org and self-refraction lenses: http://www.gv2020.org/about.htm.

I've put in an application for my org and the clinic next door to act as distributors (our staff would be trained on giving basic eye tests and training people on how to self-adjust the lenses). If the application is accepted, we could begin testing the OVCs and nearby community members once the training is completed. In particular, access to glasses has been shown as a significant, and, for you economists, cost-effective means of improving education outcomes. Seeing the board helps kids read good.

Well, that's about where I am now. Not sure if all the projects will pan out, but I have about a million ideas to take their places, so I'm sure I'll stay busy.

How many Peace Corps Volunteers does it take to screw in a light bulb? Wait, you have electricity? Zing.