It's business time.

So we’ve had our fun, especially with two holidays last week (July 1^st is Independence Day and July 4^th is Liberation Day), but now it’s time to get to work. We’ve had a few days of work at Health Development Initiative (HDI), and already we’ve gotten to experience a lot and get a pretty decent idea of what we’ll be doing with them this summer. HDI does a lot of different public-health related work around Rwanda, but we are specifically working on their sexual health and reproductive education (SHARE) program. This program focuses on using peer education as a tool to spread knowledge about HIV/AIDS and general sexual/reproductive health. 

Walking into work!

On our first day we got to plan a presentation about HIV/AIDS for a secondary school’s Anti-AIDS club event. As it always is with a new job, it was a little frustrating trying to figure out how the SHARE program works and how our work will fit into it, but I think we are getting the hang of what they are looking for and learning a lot from the process. The second day, we actually got to go to the school (I can’t remember the name, unfortunately) and judge a debate on the issue of, “Can we stop HIV/AIDS in this generation?” The students were very well informed and well spoken, and we have never seen such passion for the issue. It was really impressive! We gave our presentation afterwards, and learned that presenting in front of the group is probably one of the more boring methods we could have used. 

One of the girls on the opposition side of the debate making her case.

They had entertainment breaks between the debate and presentation, where they played loud music and some boys got up and danced. It definitely kept the event interesting! 

Group picture with us and the Anti-AIDS club! 

GROW team with two of the girls who debated the proposition side. They were very good and interesting to listen to!

Beautiful sunset as we waited for the HDI van to come pick us up.

For the next school visit, we planned a discussion (after a few misunderstandings about what we were to prepare) and had a lot more success with that route. Friday was when we had the discussion groups, at King David Academy. I really enjoyed talking to their extracurricular faculty advisor about that school system and thought it was a good way to run a school! I think I like their education system. Though to be honest, I can’t remember what it was – I just remember that I thought it was smart. :)

Me with my discussion group! We crowded around a table to talk about different methods for preventing HIV/AIDS and some recent HIV/AIDS milestones in Rwandan news. They talk about prevention as the "ABCs" (abstinence, be faithful, condom) so we discussed those methods and then I introduced some newer strategies such as putting pregnant/nursing mothers who are HIV+ on anti-retroviral drugs, male circumcision, microbicides, and a drug called Truvada.

One of the Anti-AIDS club leaders giving a summary to the entire club about the prevention methods we discussed. He was very thorough and a great speaker! He was in my discussion group and made some really good points about these newer drugs not being available in Rwanda, and definitely not available to the majority who are not wealthy. It caused me to wonder what the excitement about these new preventative measures was about if they don't reach the people who really need them. I'll be excited when they're cheap in places where HIV/AIDS is prevalent!

In the office, when we are not planning for school outings, we are researching and writing articles on various SHARE-related topics for the website we are helping to build, sharetank.org. This website was created last summer as on online resource for young people in Rwanda (and hopefully elsewhere) to find health information and ask questions. We are writing articles that will eventually be translated into Kinyarwanda and put on the website, which we will ideally get up and running this summer! In the future, we are anticipating more school visits, and a visit to one of HDI’s HIV/AIDS cooperatives, which I will tell you more about when we go! Although sitting at our computers full-time has made us go a little stir-crazy a few times, we really enjoy our work and are excited about what we get to be a part of! And as for the debate we judged earlier… the side that said, “Yes, we can stop HIV/AIDS in this generation” won. They have hope, and so do we!

Working hard, obviously. Don't worry, this was near the end of the day... we were decently sane and got work done the rest of the time :)