September 23, 2010

The prevention team has kept busy with three school awareness days and one community awareness day, as well as some of the prevention team members attending other awareness campaigns held by different organizations.
The first two school awareness days went well, however not very many students in attendance because of the affects of the strike. But this last school day went extremely well. Hundreds of kids, interactive participation, and the drama group really acted well today.
The community awareness day ended up going well after a windy start. The wind was ripping through this open field, so much that we couldn't get our big tent up. When a pole almost knocked a team member's head off, we said enough with fighting with the wind. We called the headman and he agreed to have us move into the church. We packed up all of our things and made several trips back and forth delivering goods and people. Then got started with the program. Pumulani support group, a group of old mamas, did this fantastic drama. Everyone was surprised that these old women could come up with a drama like that and then act so good on top of it! It was really a nice day.
Currently, the coordinator of the prevention team, home based care, and support, along with their manager, is organizing a launch for a branch of NAPWA (National Association of People With HIV/AIDS) here in the Nqgeleni area. There was a meeting with the chiefs and community today to discuss our plans. The community is very supportive of this launch and are looking forward to learning more about HIV/AIDS. From their questions, it's clear that not much is known and from their comments, there is still a lot of stigma. One man said that because we were passing out condoms we were killing the nation by spreading HIV to the youth. Another man asked if the nation is dying of HIV, how are they still having babies? The only thing is that our proposed date for the launch might be pension and pay day. So we need to find out first when pension and pay day is for next month, then we can plan accordlingly.

7 September 2010

The prevention side has come to a slow down due to the strikes from the schools and government side. This strike has been going on for over a month now, so no school awareness days could be scheduled for the whole month of August.
The prevention team still had their community awareness day in August, just no government officials showed up.
The strike should be coming to an end any day here and then the school awareness days will start again.
For the month of September, there is one community awareness day scheduled, one soccer tournament, and hopefully two school awareness days.