CDU Team Rises Up In Zambia and Malawi( continued) the young women.
The project had very specific components. Every day the team had an agenda, such as meeting with representatives of the Zambian Ministry of Health or other government officials. There were sessions featuring goal setting and conducting a needs assessment.
A SWOT analysis was conducted. The SWOT reflected what the observers actually saw, based on the on-site observations of how every single house with its own personalities attached, is different. Having the SWOT available during briefing sessions as a valuable tool reassured team members that they were allowing participants the opportunity to talk with a platform and encouragement offered.
Another circumstance offered an intriguing dilemma.“ Some of the peer navigators were men. A lot of the young women did not disclose their status to their partners and if a male peer navigator called as part of the program followup, the young woman’ s boyfriend or husband might get upset. The second thing was a lot of codependency from the women falling in love with these boys. Because they’ re the only ones that really understand or know of their status,” Abbasi noted.
In the brief time span of the team’ s visit, certain realities of life cropped up.“ A 14-year-old girl had been raped. She got pregnant and the baby was stillborn. Now she comes here to hold other people’ s babies and to heal from that. I found that out after one of my workshops. Somebody came in and told me,‘ We told her to stop coming,’ but I guess this is the way that she’ s choosing to heal herself, and by the end of my workshop, they were all singing. You felt the difference between people coming in and being a certain way and then leaving with some identity and acceptance,” Abbasi added.
Self-protection against HIV was also a key issue that the team was forced to address. Abbasi said the team had many conversations about the issue. It came down to what was plain, common sense.“ I think that a huge part of it is understanding the virus and the disease and how it’ s
spread. We were wearing masks most of the time, but we didn’ t really have the type of boundary between us if they were shaking our hands, or if we were dancing.
“ It was pretty much‘ no one’ s forcing you to do this, you know, and you should know your own boundaries’. I think that’ s how we were safe. There was no set way to protect ourselves, because we didn’ t know who was HIV-positive and who wasn’ t unless they told us.
“ That’ s kind of a tricky situation because, on one hand, you have to think of yourself but on the other hand, you’ ve got to be very active working with this population. I guess it’ s the same thing that’ s encountered in a hospital, for example. That’ s why obviously when we look at COVID, that there is this high incidence of the people who are on the treatment side being exposed and being impacted. That seems to be kind of a classic issue,” she said.
“ The girls are learning skills. A lot of them love to bake. They also make peanut butter, and small purses for amazing dresses. I feel like their condition is not stopping them. They’ re able to encourage other people through it or work to recycle back with us and become a peer navigator to help, and that’ s what I think is making the difference.
“ The fact that the team there saw the girls that were literally so attached to the Moms of the house. And even those women, I saw them really caring about the girls like the way that random people were telling me about the house in their neighborhood. And a lot of the health ministers, just as a lot of the adolescent nurses, are aware of what we’ re doing because if you go to a hospital in the community, your auntie might be there and somebody might see you.
“ I would say this puts a veil of protection on top of that person and what they’ re going through instead of being exposed every day or stigmatized every day like this gives you that pause to be who you are and remember that. They start building up instead of just accepting,‘ This is who I am, and this is what’ s happened to me.’ And I think that the best thing is the fact that it’ s mixed. It’ s not this is just an HIV house. It’ s a lot of other things along with that.“ It’ s a place for them to have fun. It’ s a safe place,” added Abbasi.
CDU College of Medicine | PG. 20