Recently in Young Women Empowerment Project Category
Had to share a group picture of my young women after receiving their Peer Educator certificates at the Kweneng District World AIDS Day on the 24th. I am so proud of them. :)
P.S. There appears to be something wrong with our comments right now. They appear in our system, but aren't being published on the website. I'll see if I can figure it out, but in the meantime know that we're still getting them!
Had to share a group picture of my young women after receiving their Peer Educator certificates at the Kweneng District World AIDS Day on the 24th. I am so proud of them. :)
P.S. There appears to be something wrong with our comments right now. They appear in our system, but aren't being published on the website. I'll see if I can figure it out, but in the meantime know that we're still getting them!
This week was the final training workshop for the young women’s empowerment project. They are now fully trained peer educators who have activities planned for the next several months. I cannot tell you what a relief it is to be finished. I mean there is still so much information that I want to give the girls but ultimately I knew that I needed to draw the line somewhere and let them get started. We’ll work out the kinks as they come up.
The income generating project is also getting off the ground. In mid-October we had mini-meetings where I taught the girls how to varnish the beads (we didn’t have time when we had the IGA workshop in September because they have to dry overnight) and distributed the materials to get started. In the week between that meeting and the start of our training workshop one of the girls from Mogoditshane sold five necklaces. I was so excited about that. I haven’t distributed the fabric yet because there is a pretty good chance that the DMSAC will purchase a sewing machine for each group. With sewing machines of course they products will turn out just that much better so I’m holding on to the fabric we get that figured out.
Our next big event is “graduation”, a.k.a. giving the girls certificates printed from work. Brian has negotiated it so we can give the girls their certificates at our District’s World AIDS Day commemoration to be held November 24th. At first I was surprised how excited the girls were when I told them what was going to happen. When I thought about it, however, I realized that I shouldn’t be surprised that the girls want to be recognized for what they are doing in front of a large crowd. The idea that participating in this is an honor for them is a highlight of the project altogether for me.
Okay, so the first thing is that we’ve expanded the number of participants from 10 to 20. The last time I wrote I told you that I had finally decided to cancel the exchange visit to Kasane and hold the income generating workshop locally. I was keeping the number of participants down because the Kasane visit was going to be so expensive. After canceling the visit and as a result of mentally restructuring the project to focusing on behavior change and peer education I decided that it was best to add participants sooner rather than later. That way there would be a solid base of peer educators who could get started on activities rather than having to recruit and train new people.
Adding new members meant they needed to so through the same HIV/AIDS knowledge training that the original participants completed. Since those women were already trained we asked them to conduct the second training workshop. That was a really big success. It was a success personally because I’m such a control freak that it really took a lot of willpower to let go and allow the girls to do the training how they saw fit. It was also a success for the girls because the trainers (original participants) did a fantastic job at conducting the sessions. In fact, they did such a good job that the post-test results were 96.6 percent. (The pre-test scores of the second group were much higher than the first, but the post-test scores were still truly remarkable.) I was really happy with how that training worked out. Just the fact that the original participants could teach others about HIV shows that the project is meeting some of its objectives.
Okay, so the first thing is that we’ve expanded the number of participants from 10 to 20. The last time I wrote I told you that I had finally decided to cancel the exchange visit to Kasane and hold the income generating workshop locally. I was keeping the number of participants down because the Kasane visit was going to be so expensive. After canceling the visit and as a result of mentally restructuring the project to focusing on behavior change and peer education I decided that it was best to add participants sooner rather than later. That way there would be a solid base of peer educators who could get started on activities rather than having to recruit and train new people.
Adding new members meant they needed to so through the same HIV/AIDS knowledge training that the original participants completed. Since those women were already trained we asked them to conduct the second training workshop. That was a really big success. It was a success personally because I’m such a control freak that it really took a lot of willpower to let go and allow the girls to do the training how they saw fit. It was also a success for the girls because the trainers (original participants) did a fantastic job at conducting the sessions. In fact, they did such a good job that the post-test results were 96.6 percent. (The pre-test scores of the second group were much higher than the first, but the post-test scores were still truly remarkable.) I was really happy with how that training worked out. Just the fact that the original participants could teach others about HIV shows that the project is meeting some of its objectives.
This young women’s empowerment project is becoming much bigger than I ever expected. In fact right now I’m feeling a pretty overwhelmed by it. There is so much to think about and so many details to work out. It’s not difficult, I just need to focus in and work everything out.
On Wednesday and Thursday last week I conducted a training workshop for the young women who have been chosen to lead the empowerment groups in at the village level. There are four facilities participating in the project and together they’ve selected 10 young women. The purpose of the workshop was to put everyone on the same page in terms of their knowledge about HIV, AIDS and STIs. (I may have said this before, but it never ceases to amaze me the low knowledge levels people have about HIV in a country that is being ravaged by the disease. Everyone knows the catch phrases but nobody knows what it all means.)
Training people is one of the most draining things that I can think of. Mentally, physically, emotionally it the workshop was tough. Mentally I was the person that put together the entire curriculum for the workshop. I decided what we were going to learn, how much time to spend on it, etc. There is so much information I want to cover that it was difficult to cut it back. Physically, I was the one who led almost all of the activities. Because the purpose was to give the participants information the workshop required a lot of lecturing by me with a heavy dose of group work, games and participant presentations to reinforce what they were learning. No matter what we were doing, however, I was the one who had to be looking out for time and making sure that all the information was covered. Emotionally it was difficult because of a couple of girls who were problematic. They weren’t outright disrespectful, but it was clear from their behavior they didn’t really want to learn. That’s hard when you’re putting everything you have out there.
Looking back on the workshop, however, I’d have to say that it was a success. On the second day we did an activity where groups listed what they learned the day before and presented it to the larger group. I was absolutely tickled by the information they had retained. I also did pre- and post-testing, the pre-test to identify what information to cover and the post-test to see if they learned what I wanted them to. The overall scores improved from 66.3 on the pre-test to 80.6 percent on the post. I was really happy with that.
One project that I am really excited about these days is organizing “young women empowerment clubs” in four different villages in the East Region of our district. There is so much I want to share about this, so I’m sorry in advance that the post will be kind of long (but worth reading!)
So there are a few ideas behind starting the project. The first idea is that HIV prevention needs to be a priority in Botswana. In my opinion programs for treatment, care and support of those already living with HIV and AIDS have become the focus while prevention has moved to the background. There are an estimated 27,000 people living with HIV in my district alone and more than 256,000 people in Botswana. If HIV prevention is not a focus those numbers will continue to increase and it will become impossible for Botswana to continue caring for people living with HIV. This idea of the need for prevention activities was also highlighted recently in a speech by President Festus Mogae where he said Botswana must “avoid a situation in which, as treatment access expands, increase in risky behaviors occur … Without strong and accessible prevention interventions, treatment will continually increase, making the response unsustainable.”
One project that I am really excited about these days is organizing “young women empowerment clubs” in four different villages in the East Region of our district. There is so much I want to share about this, so I’m sorry in advance that the post will be kind of long (but worth reading!)
So there are a few ideas behind starting the project. The first idea is that HIV prevention needs to be a priority in Botswana. In my opinion programs for treatment, care and support of those already living with HIV and AIDS have become the focus while prevention has moved to the background. There are an estimated 27,000 people living with HIV in my district alone and more than 256,000 people in Botswana. If HIV prevention is not a focus those numbers will continue to increase and it will become impossible for Botswana to continue caring for people living with HIV. This idea of the need for prevention activities was also highlighted recently in a speech by President Festus Mogae where he said Botswana must “avoid a situation in which, as treatment access expands, increase in risky behaviors occur … Without strong and accessible prevention interventions, treatment will continually increase, making the response unsustainable.”
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