Training in Tembisa and the CD4 Game.

This is a picture taken last Saturday by Marcilio when he and I were watching/participating in a training that Ben was leading for a church group in a schools assembly hall in Tembisa. To the right is Ben wearing a tie again and overseeing the CD4 Game. We hand out t-shirts with words on them such as Human Body, CD4 (the normal CD4 count for a person is between 800 and 1200 and for people with HIV and AIDS it drops over time and when it goes below 200 that individual has AIDS. It is at this point that one is advised if the have the access to and can afford to take antiretroviral drugs (ARVs)) TB (tuberculosis), STI (sexually transmitted infection), diarrhea, flu and other opportunistic diseases and infections. These diseases and infections can have minor or major effects to people without HIV and AIDS but can be deadly to those with HIV and AIDS. The idea is that the four people with CD4 t-shirts are asked to protect the human body and then when time passes and the CD4 cells begin to die off they leave the human body unprotected one by one. Eventually there are not enough CD4s to adequately protect the body and this is when people will die from a variety of diseases.

This is a game that we play during our peer educator trainings and did with this group as well. It is a good way to get people up and moving around and show them a visual representation of a concept that they are learning about. The group had 17 participants most in their late teens and early twenties and a few elders of the church too. It was a basic information and awareness session but the group hopes to invite us back to do a more complete training so that they can spread the "word" on HIV and AIDS throughout their congregation and community. It was also great for Marcilio to be able to attend and learn more about HIV and AIDS. He was very interested in the training and would like to learn more so he can do peer educator work in South Africa and Mozambique.