Kelly in the Kingdom: HIV Testing Event

What a successful week! I am serving in the Peace Corps as a Health/HIV Educator and up until now I haven’t been doing much of that, but that is changing now. The Clinton Foundation (Bill Clinton’s organization) has taken an interest in my area of the country. They trained about 50 Swazis in HIV Education in order to send them back to their communities to get their peers to understand the advantages of testing and then take an HIV test. The target was to reach 16-19 year olds since data shows that in the last 3 months only 3 males in that age group got tested in my entire inkundla (like a county). I was shocked by that small number since this is the country with the highest HIV prevalence in the world and an inkundla is not a small area. I definitely expected more than 3 people!

My friend, Mfanakhona at the event Saturday

One of my friends who was also the driving force behind the Youth Club that we are starting was one of the people chosen to go to the training held by the Clinton Foundation. They were tasked with mobilizing the youth to get tested and they asked me to help.

On Monday we went to two high schools and a primary school to ask the head teachers for time on Wednesday to have an audience with their students so we could talk about an HIV Testing event that would happen on Saturday. I was surprised how easily they said yes and how accommodating they were. Within a 5 minute meeting the Head Teacher gave us a 3 hour block and he offered a PA system and we asked to come in 2 days and that was ok. I don’t know how principals schedule guest speakers in American schools, but this seemed too easy. Being a foreigner here seems to give all of the projects legitimacy. In America, foreigners are not treated the same.

Wednesday morning we arrived at the big high school, around 900 students enrolled there! We started with introductions, then one of the guys talked about how HIV is transmitted and its myths, and then I spoke for 30 minutes about the advantages of HIV Testing. After I spoke we had time for questions, and those kids had some very thoughtful questions. They know about HIV, they know people with it, and people who have died from it, but there is still a huge stigma attached to it.

Then in the afternoon we spoke to the small high school and the Grade 7s of the primary school. The purpose of going to all the schools was to mobilize the youth to come out for testing on Saturday.

Some of the people who finished their test on Saturday.

We must have done a good job mobilizing because Saturday’s event was awesome! We held it at the primary school. There was a DJ playing music, three tents for doing the testing, food, and prizes! They cooked a traditional meal that they eat during important meetings: cow head, feet, and stomach… I went hungry, but they all seemed to love it! At the end of the event, 72 people from my community were tested!! Success!