VSO-ICS Zimbabwe Programme Blogs

PROJECT:

Healthcare; promoting awareness of HIV and AIDS to youth aged 15-30 through running youth friendly corners.

TOWN:

Rusape

ASSOCIATE CHARITY:

FACT (Family Aids Caring Trust)

This week at the FACT placement we have embraced our creativity with our two sessions with young people from Vengere High School.

The turnout for both sessions was great – over 30 kids attended each session.

 The first session looked at gender equality, which was a belated celebration of International Women’s Day on Saturday 8th March. The young people were given different examples of gender inequality, such as at school, in the workplace and in forced labour. In groups, they came up with role plays demonstrating the different examples of gender inequality and solutions to the problems. The young people came up with some amazing role plays on these topics and really showed how much they were thinking about these topics.

The second session took a more musical theme. We invited two local musicians along, who have been really interested in the programme. They helped the young people write music, raps, poetry and creative writing about issues that affect youths of Rusape. We had great results from this, with gospel songs, poems and raps about rights, HIV transmission and prevention and living with HIV and AIDS.

It was amazing to see the kids exploring their creativity and fantastic to hear them being creative with information they have learnt in our previous peer education sessions!

On Friday 7th March the Tsanzaguru crew ran their very own talent competition in association with their youth group “Sasco Youth Alive”! After three weeks of crazy planning the day was much awaited by the local schools, youths and of course all the volunteers. We worked alongside a Tsanzaguru rapping sensation Takudzwa, a.k.a “Splitz”. He was a great help recruiting his crew to perform and invited their dancing friends too, Taku also let us use his parents hall as a venue which had a stage. All was set. We had borrowed a PA system and thankfully found a generator from FACT as the electricity went as we were about to begin. After a few awkward moments with the generator the music was blaring and the volunteers opened the show with a hilarious dance, practiced last minute by the internationals; I’m not sure if we pulled it off but it was great fun!

The runnings were slightly dysfunctional, with school students signing up last minute and dancers jumping onto the stage in excitement to share their skills. Despite this we definitely were not short of acts. The audience were treated first with a beautiful duo of worship singers from Tsanzaguru High, and followed by a variety of confident dancers who made a storm of noise in the hall! The event also showcased several budding rap artists, each owning the stage with their energy. Amongst the chaos talent shined through as rap solos from Vengere shared their recorded music that they are soon to release. In between the acts we ran a question raffle with questions about HIV and Sexual Reproductive Health, throwing lollies as prizes to the audience!

After nearly three hours of lively performances the judges met to decide on two winners,  one dance and one singing/rap act. As the hall was transformed into a huge rave with the crowd partying in wild euphoria they came to announce the winners. The first was Stanley, an energetic 4th former from Tsanzaguru High who raised the roof with his rapping. The second winners were a hugely talented dancing duo DCP from Vengere who gave a seriously professional performance!

Once the winners were announced the music continued and everyone rushed on stage to dance. The whole hall was a flurry of happy faces, with everyone busting a move. What a success!

The big clean up happened on Friday the 28th where all the volunteers came down to Rusape General Hospital to clear out and tidy ward 3.

Ward 3 had been closed since 2008 and since then had been used to store all manner of rubbish ranging from broken beds, panes of broken glass and a lot of paint cans.

It was time to open up the ward again but not without a whole lot of Disinfectant!

We began around 8:30am removing all the rubbish, loading it onto a pick up and unloading it again at the tip site. There was little time to rest as once we cleared all the rubbish it was time to get scrubbing! After short use of a faulty floor buffer and most of the guys hard at work with the brooms we managed to scrub the floor within an inch of its life! With everything disinfected and cleaned out we finished up by dusting everything down and finished around 2:30pm. A good days work!

The team at FACT Rusape have had a busy week, with 3 successful peer education session under their belt. The most exciting session was with 21 young people, aged 15 and 16, from Vengere High School.

The group met at FACT and we had an hour jam packed with fun and games based on HIV, AIDS, the differences between them and prevention of transmission!

After getting our heads round the icebreaker (the human knot) we split into groups and put our heads together to talk about facts and myths about HIV and AIDS.

This session was great, with all of the kids getting really stuck in with the discussions. My three favourite moments of the session were:

1. 1. During discussion, the kids were helping each other out with answering questions and filling gaps in each other’s knowledge – peer education at its peak!
   3. Whilst each group was feeding back their answers about HIV and AIDS facts and myths, the young people were so involved, with everyone shouting “True” or “False” about the facts and myths.
   5. At the end of the session, all of the young people were able to reel off the ABC of prevention of HIV transmission – “A – abstinence, B – being faithful, C – use a condom”!

On Wednesday 27th the Rusape General Hospital team (Mel, Tino, Nyasha and Russell) began work on the vegetable garden for the waiting mothers centre.

The garden, composed of 3 beds so far, already has onions and korvo planted. With a forth bed already planned it will soon be a thriving garden full of fresh veg!

A big hand goes to the waiting mums who were staying in the centre, without them it would of taken hours to finish!

On Saturday the 15th the social team lead the intrepid volunteers up a mountain in Tsanzaguru. Those living in Rusape experienced their first ride in a combi as they piled in to begin the journey.

Admittedly, some were better dressed for the occasion than others, the sandal and flip flop wearers struggling to face the steep rocky incline of the final ascent. However, in high spirits we all made it to the top, floppy hats and all, and were rewarded with an amazing 360 degree view. We could see the whole of Tsanzaguru, which looked much smaller from above, and the winding tarmac road to the dam and out to Rusape.

Much of the land surrounding is farmland and we could see plots of tobacco and maize. As we gathered on the edge to look out children from a smallholding below began to wave and soon more family members joined as we entertained them with the YMCA in total hysteria. The dancing continued throughout the afternoon to music from our phones and we enjoyed a huge picnic together. Stumbling back down to ground level we all agreed that our first social was a great success. Fantastic mountaineering skills were also learnt...

Each week every counterpart pair is asked to run a GCD to teach the group about a global issue to raise awareness of development aims around the world. Our first GCD was lead by Bee and Blessing on the topic of malnutrition. Through group activities we learnt about the causes and effects of malnutrition, including the difference between under and over nourishment. The most interesting question raised forced us to think of the long term effects of a community living with malnutrition and how it can cause social and economic problems. The pair finally linked their topic to the UN MDG’s in order to show how charities such as VSO are involved in the fight against poverty.

Due to some teething problems in getting permission to work, we were delayed in starting our placements at the local clinics and hospitals across Rusape on Monday 10th. However this left time for our programme supervisor Cynthia to organise a meeting with our stakeholders in which we were all introduced to the Ministry of Health and Youth, the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, associates of the President’s office, and a member of the local council and police.

We also spent a day brainstorming our knowledge of HIV and AIDS which helped build our confidence of the topic in order to share information at the clinics.

By Thursday we received the all clear to visit our placements. Each placement team had different experiences; those at Vengere watching in on HIV counselling and health checks of expectant mothers. The Tsanzaguru team were given plenty of freedom to begin planning their youth friendly corner, VSO’s project to encourage health awareness and wellbeing in young people.

The first two weeks have flown by. The international volunteers arrived in Rusape on Monday 3rd February to be greeted by the Zimbabwean team. Within the hour there was swimming at the hostel pool, dancing and laughter shared by everyone before our ICO training began.

During the week we all bonded over teamwork activities and tasty meals, sharing our new friendships with secret notes to our own personal letterboxes!

There was great excitement on Friday when our counterpart pairings were finally revealed and we found out where we would be living for the next three months. Soon our parents arrived and although initially anxious, every volunteer left with a smile on their face ready for the next part of our project to begin.