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Hello, my name is Heidi. I'm
24 years old.
Dumelan (hello in Kalanga) I'm originally from a small town near Toronto,
Ontario, Canada. A year and a half ago I finished a degree in International Development.
Afterwards I was working for a Federal Member of Parliament as a constituency
assistant. Although the job was quite interesting at times, I didn't see my
future in this type of atmosphere. I had always planned to work in the field
of development and so I decided it was time to find a project to get involved
with. I came across Söderströms Stipendiefond’s Canadian office. For a few
months I received updated information about the different projects but there
wasn't anything that really "clicked" with me. It wasn't until I
received information about the TCE project that I seriously considered
getting involved with Söderströms Stipendiefond. The HIV/AIDS statistics are
alarming for southern Africa and I agreed with the TCE strategy - a massive
campaign needs to be implement so each and every person is informed with the
knowledge ! to stop the spread of HIV. It was then that I realized that my
efforts were needed to fight the AIDS epidemic. I went to a preparatory
meeting in Toronto at the end of October and 6 weeks later I was on a plane
to Sweden. I have been training for the TCE project in Sweden since the
middle of January. There are 7 members of the TCE team, representing 7
different nationalities. For the most part we have been kept quite busy with
fundraising, the Olympic games in Norway, building weekends, organizing
information weekends and our personal studies. Next month, myself and 4 other
members of my team are going to Botswana. (The other 2 will be going to
Zimbabwe.) All of us will be working at the division level, an area of
500,000 people, which means we will be responsible for many, many different
tasks. In the case of Botswana, the TCE project is just being implemented, so
we will be doing anything and everything that needs to be done to get the
project lifted off the ground - PR, hiring field officers, meeting with
dignitaries and influential business people, arranging courses for field
officers... Dumelan (hello in Kalanga), So we just finished week 3 and now we are into week
4!! Time is flying!! My team was visiting us in Tutume over the weekend.
Every two weeks we have a weekend meeting to plan our schedules, updates,
tasks for the following two weeks. This week Duncan and I are continuing with
the rapid assessment. We're staying in Francistown with 7 field officers and
Iveta doing the assessment of the comparison villages. Duncan and I will
continue to collect statistics from the clinics. Over the next couple of weeks we will be giving more
support to the field officers in their counselor education. In a month they
will write an exam that will qualify them as HIV lay counselors. It will
definitely be useful in the future when counseling is of greater demand. The
government is planning to introduce AZT therapy to people with HIV either
free or at a subsidized cost. Right now only HIV+ pregnant women in their
last month have access to free AZT. It drastically reduces the risk of mother
to child transmission. Next week (or the week after) I am moving to Kasane
for roughly 3 weeks. We have a patrol up there (10 field officers) that are
quite isolated from the rest of their troop here in Tutume. Kasane is at the
Zimbabwe border, near Victoria Falls and just north of Chobe national park. I
am really excited to be going up there. It'll be a good challenge to see how
I manage on my own. So I'll be providing lots of support in the counselor
education as well as helping to get volunteers for TCM organized. Another
task will be to try and get a good working relationship with the AIDS coordinator
in this area. Apparently she hasn't been to cooperative. This week I got my provisional motorcycle license and
passed my theoretical exam. We do the practical exam probably next week. We
have a motorcycle to use which is of great assistance to get around from
village to village - the local transport isn't very reliable to remote places
and you could wait hours trying to get a lift. Highlights of the past 2 weeks: got a lift from a
policeman and got to ride in the paddy wagon!! I was in Maitengwe (50km north
of Tutume at Zimbabwe border) visiting a clinic - the woman next to it
invited me to her compound to have some lunch - samp (mealie pap) with some
sauce - green spinach type vegetable, tomato and oil. It was very yummy.
She's super sweet - every time she sees me she invites me over. Thanks to all
those for the email...sorry if I'm not able to send many replies...internet
access is very limited at this point but I'll stay in touch as much as
possible. Kind regards, Heidi heidi@soderstromdirect.freeservers.com
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