World AIDS Day

Date: 12/1/08

I cannot report on everything that is going on in my town let alone country wide today because it would take too much time but...

To give you an update on my work:
Today is World AIDS Day. My counterpart and I hosted a training for the children at our NGO. At first, I did not know how to approach the topic because our children range in age from 8 to 14. Lucky for me, my fearless counterpart already had a book she had prepared with different activities. Last week we planned out the activities for the day; however, since my counterpart speaks Russian a little better than myself, she did all of the talking today.

We had 4 boys and 5 girls show up. Before we did anything, we had the children take a 10 question test about AIDS. My counterpart read fake letters written by a mother and a teenage girl, and explained some facts about AIDS. My director told a personal story about meeting someone who was HIV positive. We played two different games with the children. The first was more of a role play to teach them about how to interact with people who were HIV positive. We had one kid sit in a chair wearing a hat that said “ВИЧ +”. The first three children all reacted poorly to the “HIV positive” child. They said insults or ran away to wash their hands, etc. The last child sat down next to the “HIV positive” child and had a conversation while holding hands. The second game taught the children about how AIDS affects the immune system. Three children attempted to protect the “HIV positive” child from different diseases like tuberculosis, pneumonia, and flu. The “immune system” formed a barricade around the “HIV positive” child and pushed away the different diseases. The “diseases” were trying to tag the “HIV positive” child. At the end, we allowed the children to ask questions and then gave them the same test again to measure what they learned.

Coming up on the work agenda:
Later this week we will have Volunteer’s Day. I have volunteered to help with a cultural training by teaching line dancing and the Texas Two-step to a group of street children/orphans. Right now I am working to set up a TOEFL preparation class and an English conversation hour with various university students. Later I hope to get involved with the dance school in my town. I a working on getting my NGO an anaerobic digester, and I am also looking into research to make the technology more available to Kyrgyzstan. My director and counterpart have asked that I help them learn how to use Powerpoint and other programs on the computer in our office. They also want me to make a film about the organization but this will have to wait until we can find a camera. I am looking into getting balls for the children in our soccer training. Thankfully, work has finally picked up and I am no longer lacking things to do.