Highlights of Training

Training is over! It’s been 9 interesting weeks but, having met some really wonderful people and having learned quite a bit, I’ll say now, it’s been an essential part of whatever my experience here is to be.
So, to sum it all up…
Training Highlights:
1. Appreciative Inquiry: The AI Approach
I think this is sometimes really valuable for everyone – community development workers, teachers, parents, whoever… it’s about approaching development with the idea of replicating successes (vs. dwelling on failures)
this was taken from The Thin Book of Appreciative Inquiry by Sue Annis Hammond

1. In every society, organization, or group, something works
2. What we focus on becomes our reality
3. Reality is created in the moment, and there are multiple realities
4. The act of asking questions of an organization or group influences the group in some way
5. People have more confidence and comfort to journey to the future (the unknown) when they carry forward parts of the past (the known)
6. If we carry parts of the past forward, they should be what is best about the past
7. It is important to value differences
8. The language we use relates our reality

Clearing – up Stats
BOTUSA (Botswana partnership with U.S.’s CDC) came in the first week of our training and cleared-up some of the confusion over 2 different Botswana HIV prevalence stats many of us had seen even before we’d left the states. This is what we learned about the 2 figures:
33% figure: This is from a survey done of women coming into the antenatal clinic- thus pregnant women, usually between 15 and 34 tears old
17% figure: This was calculated from the Botswana AIDS impact Survey. This is more population based but it includes Batswana aged anywhere from 18 months to 94 years

So both of these surveys don’t account for
• Gender disparities and age differences between the two genders. (adolescent girls are twice as likely to be infected with HIV)
• Geographic disparity: HIV/AIDS prevalence is significantly higher in certain regions of the country – the Chobe district and eastern Botswana (highly mobile population)

Visiting The Youth Health Organization (Yoho)
Yoho is an amazing; energetic organization based in Gabs. It really touches my heart that there is a group so dedicated to kids
Yoho’s vision: Develop an AIDS-free generation THROUGH youth-adult partnerships.
Yoho works with and for youth through the “Triplet: Entertainment Education for Empowerment”. Some of their programs/projects include:
1) a grassroots soccer program that merges moves and rules of the game with life skills and goals
2) DZalobana BoSele Arts Festival: theatrical performances – put on by youth – (poetry, music, drama, story- telling) are held annually throughout all of Botswana – in front of all different types and sizes of youth audiences.
3) Bus rides project: as buses provide the major public transport, In Botswana, Yoho has actually managed to bring their outreach ONTO the bus – (via TV’s and VCR) funded by several Bots. bus companies.
4) Yoho’s Pledge 25 Project: this I thought was a seemingly simple but truly ingenious idea – because young kids are the safest blood donors, they’ve been challenged by Yoho to donate blood 25 times in their life. Consider how this not only involves the youth in helping with their country’s short – blood supply – but motivates kids to make healthy life-choices in order to donate safe blood.

Visit from the U.S. Ambassador
Katherine Canavan met with us twice during our training – first at a dinner our fist Saturday in Botswana, and then later at one of our training villages. On that second visit she shared quite a bit of info. with us. Perhaps this was her intention to begin with, but she made me quite proud of U.S. involvement in Botswana thus far. (For example, I found out that despite the controversial ideologies that guide REPFAR, it is really up to the Botswana govt. to dictate how to cater those U.S. resources/$ to the HIV/AIDS issues specific to its people). That being said, a pro- U.S. point of view…
Some other interesting buts and pieces form the Ambassador’s talk….
She addressed Botswana’s diamond industry and the dangers of dependence – something which from the start, the Bots. Government has been watchful of. Some other possibilities the government is looking at…
- coal fields for power production
- introducing a sweet-melon agribusiness in Botswana, directed towards Europe (apparently there are three months in the year during which S. Africa can’t produce melons but Botswana can!)
- continuing Botswana’s beef production – Botswana has some of the finest beef in the world and its large purchaser is actually the EU.

SOS visit
There is an SOS Children’s village in Tlokweng that I was able to visit a month ago. I had never heard of SOS. So for those of you who also aren’t familiar – it is a world-wide organization for orphans and vulnerable children. The really wonderful idea it works of is ‘rebuilding the family unit’ for these children. So, each SOS village consists of family houses (Tlokweng had 15 houses). Children live as brothers and sisters under one roof, along with an aunty and a “mother”. Mothers are female volunteers who agree to live with their SOS children, teach, nurture, and love them. “Where is the “father” figure?” you’re probably thinking … - Well, SOS has established that the father role is provided by the SOS director… this I guess was something I myself had trouble accepting… but nonetheless I really loved the guiding principles behind this organization.