Condom Corner

I got a rare chance to talk with Shaela on the phone last night and after catching up on all sister issues, she subtly pointed out that I never write about work in my blog. Touche! Even though I love my job here, I spend a lot of time on it so I guess I'm ready to switch gears when I'm writing blogs. But I do it all for The People so you get what you want.

We have 3 grants right now but for this post I'll focus on PSI or Population Services International. Our PSI program has two components: condom distribution & education, and public outreach education. We received 2,000 condoms from PSI in December and distributed them all by the end of the year. We are currently waiting for more. We give them out to the hotels and bars in town, the local government offices, and any place we can think of that people will have easy access. The prostitutes and truck drivers are a big focus for us as they are disproportionately affected with HIV/AIDS and are most likely to spread the disease.

Most of our condoms are male condoms but we do have a small supply of female condoms as well. These generate a lot of interest and usually don't last long. I've heard of women using them when they go on long journeys because car jackings are slightly common here and this preventative measure can protect them from contracting HIV/AIDS in the event of rape.

The comment I have most often from men is that having sex with a condom is like eating candy with the wrapper still on. I always remind them that candy can't give you AIDS, only cavities :)

We have a penis model in the office and are happy to demonstrate proper use and disposal to anyone who asks. We have a lot of fun with this in the office and I've been pleasantly surprised with how open most people are in talking about condoms. The conversation usually turns quite entertaining when we try to explain how to use the female condom to a man who has never heard of one. The concept pretty much blows their minds :)

The other component of the PSI project is public outreach education. The volunteers in our organization go out to schools, churches, tea factories, women's groups, clinics, etc. and give talks on self efficacy and mpango wa kando (basically cheating on your spouse which is a big issue in a society that has a very recent history of polygamy). We give 20 talks in the community each month and each one focuses on facilitating healthy behavior change. These talks vary from informal small groups as people wait to see the nurse at the clinic to presentations with video for several hundred students at a school.

And what exactly is my role in all this? Well, my main focus is to develop easy to follow systems that ensure volunteers are creating an outreach schedule in advance, actually doing the talks that are scheduled, and then reporting on them to the donors so they can be funded for the following month. This may sound unimportant compared to the actual outreaches but planning and follow through are actually huge challenges for this organization and real obstacles to sustainability and future funding.

I'm really excited about the work we are doing in this project and am very pleased with the support we have received from PSI. I would love to see a focus on birth control added as a third component but that is a tough topic in a very Christian society that values large families. We have had a request to talk about abortion when we do a follow-up visit to one of our secondary schools. Apparently home abortions are relatively common in the secondary schools so that could be a very interesting outreach...

Anyway, that's a little update on what we are doing with PSI. I'll try to write later in the week about one of our other projects. Thanks for your interest!