"Saving the nation, my nation"

by Pusetso Morapedi

“I grew up in a very small village, Qangwa, about 350 km away from a bigger village called Maun,” says UNV volunteer Pusetso Morapedi (left). “Back then there were about 20 family compounds, a health post and a primary school. Nothing has changed much in the 14 years that has passed, except now there is a clinic and more people and that Qangwa is one of the villages I now work with!” (UNV)

A key activity in the Community Capacity Enhancement Programme (CCEP) in Botswana are ‘community conversations’ such as this one in Kauxwi. People discuss HIV/AIDS, how to take action and distribute information. (UNV)

26 May 2009

Gumare, Botswana: I applied for the Community Capacity Enhancement Programme (CCEP) in response to HIV/AIDS because as much as I am affected indirectly, it affects everyone directly. It’s no longer about health issues and saving individual lives, it is about saving the nation, my nation.

I took the opportunity with CCEP to get to understand why policies are not working, why people seem non-responsive with HIV/AIDS. And I am coming to understand that it’s much deeper than what I thought I knew. It takes people and programmes like UNV to unearth the core issues and concerns to find windows of opportunity for remedial action by empowering communities.

My interest in development work started at the age of 14, I think. I would join clubs in school that worked towards helping people, the environment, and that involved people, and taught about self development etc.

When I was 17, after my senior school exams, and waiting for my results to start applying to university, I volunteered at YWCA. I had been trained in the peer approach to counselling by the teenagers programme at high school, and I worked as a peer educator to youth in issues of HIV/AIDS and sexual reproductive health.

I worked with people, I learnt a lot about giving your time and energy for someone to get it right and I loved it.

I started working as a UNV volunteer last September in the Okavango District. Using the CCEP approach, I got to work with some of the villages in HIV/AIDS and reproductive health Issues, organizing health fairs to raise awareness.

I have had the opportunity to form Village Multi-sectoral HIV/AIDS committees, after having conversations with the communities that established the need for such committees to coordinate HIV/AIDS and sexual and reproductive health issues at the village level.

This in turn meant I needed to organize trainings for local facilitators to do the work of helping with the identification and exploration of concerns with and for their communities when we national UNV volunteers are not around.

My skills were sharpened when I organised and facilitated a CCEP workshop for the district's Technical Advisory Committee, which gives technical advice to the District Multi-sectoral AIDS Committee.

It was necessary to bring the people that the community looks up to on board, so that they can give us support – for example when we call for meetings and when we need help with building capacity in the community. They also help strengthen institutional capacity to develop effective communication strategies for behaviour change at a professional and community level.

I also work with schools to increase life skills and attitudes of self-esteem. We aim to incorporate behavioural change, hopefully to reduce discrimination and stigma, and the spread of HIV among young people - empowering the young to be able to stand up for themselves with the facts.

To cultivate the spirit of volunteerism, I have started up a 'tutor a child' project. During conversations with the senior staff at the Okavango Junior school, it was a huge concern that the pass rate at school is very low with almost 90 percent of the kids taking their exams this year being 'low achievers', getting 49 percent test scores and below.

I talked to my colleagues about starting a tutoring programme where we take five to ten pupils to tutor on a certain subject. The headmaster has allowed us to do that, it is an on going project, and we hope the students (and in the end, the whole community) will benefit from it.

I taught French for a year before becoming a UNV volunteer, and now I have a French club at junior school. The kids are excited about it and they are learning to speak a foreign language which I hope will give them hope and drive to reach for higher ground. At every meeting we also do an HIV/AIDS ‘mythbuster’, and communication skills, life skills and assertiveness sessions.

I do what I do because I still believe in the power of togetherness and giving and I have not given up the idea that people can face up to their challenges. If I can be the agent in bringing about that light and change then I am happy and I look forward to it.