Thursday, September 07, 2006

Training, T-Cells, tools and treats.

This is the main tool that we use during our Peer Educator Training. This manual was developed by Linzi. It has 12 modules covering everything on training HIV/AIDS from behavior change models to communication skills to epidemiology to condoms to myths and old wives tales. After they have finished the training the Peer Educators also get an "HIV/AIDS 36 Week Programme Course" that they use with their peers to educate them.
Here is Ben training the group that he worked with over the past two weeks at an automotive company in the area. We did a six day training in four days which meant that we had to cut out a lot of what we would normally do with the full six days. In fact we would prefer another day if possible to make sure everything is covered
Here we have Douglas who had a group of his own. I worked mainly with Doug's group but also spent time with Ben's group so that when it came to training a module with them it was not as if I was walking in off the street for the first time. There were supposed to be 55-57 employees being trained as Peer Educators but over the four day training we saw maybe 35 of these people in all. The following few pictures were taken during the "CD4 Game" that we played with Ben's group. As you can see when the four CD4s were asked to protect the "human body" they first turned their backs to the outside and joined hands. We asked them how they would protect in this position, so......
....they turned towards the attackers but kept their hands linked and soon realized that to protect the body they would need to not hold hands.
This looks like a rugby or American football tackle here to keep Flu away from the human body. The game can get physical and even emotional as we play. This picture does some justice to the intensity of the game. It is a great way to get the blood flowing, drive away sleepiness and demonstrate for them how once HIV and AIDS has weakened the body diseases and viruses take advantage of the weakened immune system.
Here are two of our Peer Educators in training taking a break for treats and tea. It is funny to people that in addition to being a vegetarian I don't drink tea or coffee. I had similar experiences in Mozambique and even in the States.
Finally, we come upon a picture of me training with Doug's group. It was nice to finally get a chance to be facilitating various parts of the training. I will help some more in another training and then begin training on my own.

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