Q&A with Bots7: Part I

Would you recommend bringing a laptop to Botswana?

It really depends on you. Your office/clinic/organization may have a laptop or computer for you to use, but there is no guarantee of that. I know that having a laptop was great for writing proposals and AIDS plans, creating monitoring tools, designing brochures and signs, and organizing letters and correspondences. In my case, the laptop was critical to everything I was doing. So if you are leaning towards bringing one, go for it (especially if you have one already).

The biggest downside of brining a laptop is that it may be stolen. If you bring a laptop make sure you have personal property insurance and regularly back it up on DVDs that you either hide or lock in the PC safe. The only other cautionary note is that you may not have electricity in your house (but even these volunteers were able to charge the laptop at the clinic or other government office).

Remember that if you don’t bring a laptop and you later change your mind it is possible to buy the latest HP in Botswana for about $1,000 USD.

Has it been easy or difficult to have visitors?

We haven’t had visitors (yet?). I think it can be a great way to promote Peace Corps’s third goal. And from what I’ve observed, it’s been a positive experience for PCVs and communities. I would recommend, however, not having visitors until you are at least one year into service. (Visitors are not allowed at all during training and you can’t take leave and/or travel during the first three months after swearing in, so there’s no point in having visitors then.). Your first year is critical to establishing relationships in the community and your independence in the country. If you can’t make it that long without reinforcements, frankly, you shouldn’t come at all. The loneliness and depression that sets in after a visitor leaves can be pretty powerful, especially if a volunteer was never really established in the first place.

I heard from another future PCV. Her job description is different than mine. What are the different job categories? What do they do?

There are four categories of types of jobs in the upcoming training group:

1) DACs - District AIDS Coordinators

DAC volunteers work at the district level helping to coordinate HIV/AIDS activities, programs, and interventions. The DAC office is not supposed to implement specific HIV/AIDS activities, which falls on local NGOs and sectors. Instead, DAC offices, with the support of a community AIDS committee, decide how to direct local funds and monitor the effectiveness of interventions. DAC offices also report on local HIV/AIDS programs, such as ARV therapy, PMTCT, orphan care and home based care. A DAC PCV builds the capacity of the DAC and others working in the DAC office. This may involve creating organization tools, improving linkages with community organizations, incorporating data and qualitative assessments into planning and monitoring, advising NGOs and sectors on how best to implement activities, etc.

DAC volunteers live in the bigger villages and towns and their day-to-day job is very office based. (You are being told this upfront—don’t plead ignorance later.) The advantage to being a DAC is the access to resources (e.g., activity budget, vehicle/driver assigned to the office, linkage with various sectors). You also end up being kind of a focal person for the other PC volunteers in your area by sharing information and finding ways to support their activities. The biggest disadvantage is dealing with nonsensical bureaucracy and protocols (which isn't unique to Botswana or the emerging world).

2) CCBers - Community Capacity Builders

CCB volunteers are placed at either a clinic or a government social work office. They are charged with mobilizing the community around HIV/AIDS—kind of vague, I know. They do a lot of the things noted in other descriptions, especially trying to educate people regarding HIV/AIDS and helping the community design local interventions in the areas of prevention, support and care. In the past, CCB volunteers at clinics were assigned to the Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission (PMTCT) programme. They still work to help the programme succeed, but their mandate really extends into all things HIV/AIDS. PST will help prepare CCB volunteers with skills and approaches to use at site. The volunteers that use these tools tend to do well and find their place. The volunteers that don’t, not surprisingly, seem kind of lost and get jaded early on.

The advantage to being a CCB is the freedom to assess the community’s needs and get involved in things that interest you. You can also devote more time to “integrating into the community” than DACs and others might get to. The disadvantage is clearly the lack of a clear day-to-day job description. It’s definitely not the place for people that want to, or need, to be micromanaged (nor is Peace Corps for that matter).

3) NGOs - Non-Governmental Organization Volunteer (or ASO)

NGO volunteers are placed with a community-based organization doing HIV/AIDS work, such as a youth outreach program, orphan “day care” centre, home based care operation or counseling/testing centre (not named Tebelopele). Let me state clearly that these are SMALL community-based organizations. You will not be placed with UNICEF, Pathfinder or PSI—though you may have a relationship with such players. Also, NGO volunteers don’t get to pick the organization they work with, but sometimes their background may play a small part in placement. In terms of a job description, I guess you could say that NGO volunteers do a lot of DAC-type stuff, but it’s confined to the one organization. They also tend to spend a lot more time helping report activities to donors and finding additional sources of funding.

An advantage to being an NGO volunteer is working with people who really need and value your skills. You also get to avoid the frustrations of working in a government bureaucracy. The biggest disadvantages are the lack of resources and management skills among some programme directors.

4) Life Skills

This is the newest of all of the programmes. It was created under the assumption that the HIV/AIDS endemic is fueled by the lack of basic life skills among young people (e.g., ability to deal with peer pressure, assertiveness, knowing who to reach out to, etc.) Life Skills Volunteers (LSVs) are placed at a junior secondary school (junior high) and work with the guidance and counseling teacher. LSVs help lead in-school sessions on life skills development, build the capacity of faculty to offer HIV/AIDS education, lead after school activities to reinforce learning, create linkages with parents, build partnerships with government service providers, and report on HIV/AIDS activities.

Advantages/disadvantages. Working with in-school youth can be especially rewarding. It also helps that government partners are really excited and committed to this programme. The education system itself, however, can be a bit of an inhibitor. And this is a new programme with a lot of things to work out.

After saying all of this, being a Peace Corps volunteer is being a Peace Corps volunteer. One assignment doesn’t exclude you from working with anyone, be it a school, clinic or NGO. For example, I was a DAC volunteer doing a lot of office work, but I found opportunities to facilitate HIV/AIDS sessions with youth groups out in the community, something typically ascribed to a CCBer. Furthermore, most CCBers work with the local schools in much the same way as a Life Skills volunteer. What you do, and how you do it, is largely up to your own initiative and interests.