BotswanaTodd: Working in Sowa

So the question about what it is I actually do in Sowa pops up pretty consistently and I’ve only vaguely addressed it in my blog. I work at the District AIDS Coordinating (DAC) office in Sowa. There are DAC offices in main health districts of Botswana, and while there are many Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) in the DAC offices in Botswana, not every DAC office has one. My official title is District Community Liaison (DCL) meaning that I’m based in the Sowa DAC office but am responsible for “Liaising” with the surrounding community, which is basically a fancy way of saying that I’m expected to spend a lot of time on secondary projects around or outside of Sowa. Given the small size of Sowa and the fact that we’re kind of in the middle of nowhere out on the Sua (Salt) Pans there’s not a lot of community to liaise with. One project I’ve been working on since November is designing a small business and entrepreneurship skills class to teach to refugees at the nearby United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) and that project may be finally ready to begin in mid-June after months of various bureaucratic hurdles, security clearance issues, and official certifications. There are a handful of other projects I’m working on that could start in the next 2-3 months and as those happen I’ll write more specifically about them. My primary job in the Sowa DAC office is working with the Assistant District AIDS Coordinator (ADAC – we love our acronyms here in PC) to provide HIV/AIDS education to Sowa and the surrounding communities.

That’s a broad mission but it is crucial because it’s estimated that 1 in 4 people here in Sowa are HIV positive. Now the Botswana government provides free Antiretroviral (ARVs) to Botswana citizens who test HIV+ which is helping people live longer but unfortunately the rate of new infections (Incidence) continues to rise here and Sowa, and throughout Botswana. The reasons are many, but the main ones are low condom usage and a culture where it’s accepted for people to have multiple concurrent sexual partners (something we call MCP). Sowa is a mining town where many workers (mainly men) live away from their primary families, with a number of truckers servicing the mine, and therefore commercial sex is major factor here as it is in mining and trucking towns throughout Botswana and neighboring countries. Our office is promoting education and awareness of all these issues, but ultimately we are looking to affect change in people’s behavior when it comes to their sexual activity. That is a very difficult thing to achieve, because human behavior being what it is, is very hard to change, especially when that behavior is linked to such an intrinsic part of our personality – sex. Most adults know what they should do and not do with regards to sex and HIV/AIDS, but they engage in risky behaviors anyway, especially when alcohol is involved, and many times here in Botswana and especially here in Sowa alcohol is involved. There’s not a lot of illicit drug use in Botswana, especially compared to surrounding countries, but alcohol abuse is definitely a factor and strongly linked to the high HIV/AIDS rates here. Our interventions with adults 20 and above are very targeted and usually involve testing for HIV. Many people are probably HIV+ and don’t know it so the first step is to get tested so we have a lot of testing events. We’ve also launched a Safe Male Circumcision (SMC) campaign here in Sowa as statistics have proven that men who are circumcised are 50% less likely to contract HIV or infect someone with the virus as compared to men who are not circumcised. Testing and the SMC Campaign are significant percentage of our adult education and prevention programs.

Our main focus though has been with youth education and prevention, because if we can intervene with education and options before youth become sexually active then maybe we can create different or new behaviors and choices with regards to sexual activity and hopefully stop risky behavior before it begins. In the last 2 months we’ve held a number of events targeted at the youth here in Sowa, debates about sex education, movie screenings about HIV/AIDS issues and topics, and HIV/AIDS education workshops. There are two schools here in Sowa, the main government high school (called Junior Secondary Schools) and the private, English only school, Flamingo School which basically is the equivalent of a K-12 private school. Flamingo School has a pretty active debate club, while TT (the ADAC here in Sowa, short for Thatayaone) and I have worked with the guidance counselors at the government Junior Secondary School (Nxakato) to start a debate club and from January to March this year we held 3 debates, one at Nxakato, one at Flamingo and a “cross-town” debate between the two schools. The debate topic was “Sex Education Should Be Taught in Schools: Pro/Con.” The debates were a huge success with the students and strongly supported by the teachers and parents here in Sowa. Very candid discussions and well-thought arguments were presented by all the students involved about the role of sex education in Botswana schools.

Surprisingly given how religious (mostly protestant Christian) many Batswana are and how conservative and traditional culture is here about sexual matters (conservative in that its considered private) discussions about and presentations of sexual education have not been that controversial here. Maybe it’s because the issue here is literally life and death that people are more willing to talk about it. A total of 24 students participated in the debates and all three combined were attended by just under 300 people.

The film screenings have been very popular as youth are always more interested in watching a movie than having an adult lecture to them. The films have been both documentaries and fiction and involve a wide-range of topics whether it is the plight of HIV orphans living on the streets of Zambia, to soap opera type melodramas that effectively (and entertainingly) demonstrate the risks involved with having multiple sexual partners and not using condoms, to the plight of a school in Soweto (South Africa) where 75% of the students (ages 14-17) tested HIV positive. I’ll write more about the films and their impact in an upcoming blog.

The workshops have also been successful and well received by the students. They have involved a discussion about HIV/AIDS statistics and prevention. Here in Botswana we follow the “ABC” method of HIV/Education with youth – Abstinence, Be Faithful, Condomize – where we emphasize that the only 100% effective way to prevent HIV transmission and infection is to abstain from sexual activity. However we know it is not realistic to only teach abstinence, and quite candidly it would be irresponsible for us to present that as the only prevention method. We talk about being faithful to ONE partner and getting tested with your partner and to always use condoms if they do engage in sexual activities as we don’t want them to just think of HIV/AIDS (though that is the most important) but also sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and unplanned/unwanted pregnancies. The “Condomize” part of the workshops are always a highlight and get everyone’s attention as we go through step-by-step instructions on how to use a male and female condom. While there are always giggles by the students, you can tell they are taking it seriously especially when we talk candidly about what happens if they do decide to engage in sexual activity and not use a condom. Of course we prefer they don’t have sex until they are at least 18 and in a committed, monogamous relationship, but if they do, they have to know their status and they have to use a condom. Anyone who thinks this type of discussion might encourage youth to have sex is mistaken, as the graphic details of STI and HIV infection are not sexy at all but necessary truths that they need to learn and hopefully take to heart. Knowledge is power especially with youth, we have to educate and empower them to make the right decisions. Below are some photos from recent events - debates, workshops and screenings