World AIDS Day in DC and Rwanda

Hi everyone!

This week, I’d like to take a moment to focus on GlobeMed and RVCP’s activities for World AIDS Day, which took place on December 1st.

At GW, Amro’s campaign team hosted an informational bake sale where GlobeMedders taught GW students about HIV/AIDS statistics of DC while also accepting donations in exchange for baked goodies.

RVCP held a soccer tournament in the Huye District for World AIDS Day and delivered critical information to 150 adolescents about HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted infections, and condom use. Emmanuel Bakundukize is the head of this initiative at RVCP and he wrote a really inspiring report about that day:

HIV/AIDS avoidance in 150 Village young people
The project is intended to increase the knowledge of 150 village young people about HIV prevention, sexually transmitted infections (STI’s); reproductive health and methods of family planning. Furthermore, it works under the Rwanda Village Concept Project (RVCP), a health-promoting program that consists of 108 Rwandan medical and pharmaceutical students.

Goal: The overall aims and objectives of RVCP is to provide sustainable improvement in the health and  living conditions of underprivileged communities through health promotion with an emphasis on self-reliance and active and responsible participation. RVCP seeks to work with the most disadvantaged villages in the Huye district. The Micro Project is specifically aimed at developing the skills and knowledge of the anti-HIV/AIDS clubs in problem solving, project management, and promoting greater awareness of responsible sexual behavior. The ultimate goal is to reduce the prevalence of sexually-related health problems, with the intention of spreading awareness to the greater community through the training of youth leaders. The project is set in Huye District/Southern Province of Rwanda.
THE REPORT OF SOME ACTIVITIES DONE in 2011

1. Football tournament

The RVCP through its HIV awareness, reproductive health and Family planning has organized the tournament on 23 October 2011 in village to empower the clubs and attract village people by targeting the young people.

*At the beginning of the tournament, the youth teams greeting the people.	* The tournament was opened officially
* Within the break ,even some of soldiers shared with the youth teams about the tournament	* After tournament ,the anti-AIDS youth clubs presented the songs related to HIV prevention
* These are some materials we use during the event

2. World AIDS Day (WAD)

The World AIDS Day (WAD) in Huye was organized by Rwanda Village Concept Project (RVCP). There was a football tournament in the village called MPUNGWE Village with about 150 participants; speeches and performances with the central topic AIDS.

This year the central theme was: “Getting Zero incidence…”

There was a condom demonstration by some of village young people

N.B: The topics covered in sessions include: Anatomy and the physiology of the genitals, love and sexual relationships, HIV/AIDS (symptoms, methods of transmission, prevention, promoting voluntary HIV-testing) educating about reproductive health, responsible sexual behavior, HIV/AIDS& gender and sexual violence, treatment for and care of people living with HIV/AIDS as well as sexual transmitted infections (STIs) and family planning.

These are some activities we tried to do with respect to “HIV avoidance in 150 village young people”. However; this last does not have any donor to support it and this is the main obstacle we meet all the time. Moreover, such activities are very limited to reach the villages due to the lack of donors.

We remain hopeful to continue the progress we have made with the continued enthusiasm of the members of the Huye District and with the support of prospective donors.

Done at Huye on 09/12/2011

Emmanuel BAKUNDUKIZE

Coordinator of “HIV avoidance in 150 village young people”

Project leader in GlobalGiving

Director of HIV/AIDS Awareness, Reproductive Health and Family planning programme

National officer on Reproductive Health including AIDS-Rwanda

To learn more information about Emmanuel’s project and to help him and his fellow RVCP members stop the transmission of HIV/AIDS in Rwanda, go to http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/hiv-aids-avoidance-in-150-village-young-people/.

Fall Partner Update

Hello and Happy Fall!

We hope that you are all doing well and enjoying the gorgeous October weather. We have a lot to share with you all, but first and foremost, we’d like to thank you for continuing to follow our project, even if you just stop by to take a peek at new pictures or reports every now and then. We really appreciate it and are so excited to share our project and our partnership with you!

We also have some HUGE NEWS – we’ve been discussing with RVCP members about holding a Winter Initiative in addition to our usual initiative in the summer. Holding a Winter Initiative would mean that we would double the number of mothers that would receive goats and plots of land to farm for profit, feed their families, and propel the sustainability of the project. The total cost for funding the Winter Initiative is $3,781 and we’ve been brainstorming ways to make this happen.

So here’s the big news: a donor has agreed to completely fund our Winter Initiative!!! This is so exciting and we are extremely grateful for your generosity. For those of you who may be new supporters of our project, the Winter Initiative consists of hosting about 12 education sessions for mothers at the Huye Health Clinic about nutrition, education, hygiene, etc. that the women can apply to themselves and their families (especially their children). The women who attend a majority of these sessions are eligible to receive one goat and one plot of land for a year with which they can feed their children and sell excess crops and milk for a profit. At the end of one year, the women return one goat from the original goat’s litter and a portion of their profits from farming to the clinic. This serves as their health insurance for the clinic and helps the sustainability of the program by helping to pay for the next group of women. GlobeMed at GW started working on this program with RVCP two years ago and have since called the program the Maternal Health Education Program.

Because we now have the funding to sponsor the Winter Initiative, we can now focus on our partner’s most immediate need and purpose all of our energy towards accomplishing our next goal. The clinic is in desperate need of two new delivery rooms. As of now, there is one delivery room and one maternity ward at the Huye Health Clinic. The delivery room has only one bed while the maternity ward has three beds. Because this maternity ward supports on average 50 births per month, women often end up delivering on the beds in the maternity ward. Eliphaz, the Head Coordinator at RVCP, has even told us many times about situations where as many as five women come to the clinic in labor at once. The addition of two new delivery rooms will provide the much needed space to support the needs of expecting mothers who come to the clinic.

Building these rooms will cost about $12,000 as they are being built from the ground up. We’re excited about getting to work on meeting our fundraising goals to make this dream a reality, but we could use some guidance in terms of contacts – who would be willing to donate medical supplies to the clinic, or who would be able to point us in the right direction.

Our last bit of RVCP-related news is that we’ve made some additions to our GlobalGiving Page! Pacifique and Boniface have created pages for their own projects within the realm of RVCP. These projects are HIV/AIDS avoidance in 150 Village Young People and Strengthen Hand Washing to 800 Children in Rwanda. Please click through these pages to learn a bit more about their projects and support their cause!

As far as news of our chapter at GW goes, we have had several successful events so far this year! We’ve had our RwandArt Sale, a bake sale, and our Hydrate for Humanity campaign. To promote team building, we also had our first all-staff retreat last weekend at Summit Lake in Emmittsburg, Maryland where we learned about our partner, new marketing strategies, and each other. Coming up, we are hosting a bar night at Rugby in Georgetown and are currently working on a new awareness event where we will be exhibiting a photo gallery of 6-8 Rwandan mothers who have participated in MHEP and tell their stories through pictures and accounts that our GROW team learned over the summer. The photo gallery exhibit will take place on November 18th from 9am-4pm in Kogan Plaza and admission is free so come learn about our beneficiaries in greater detail!

That’s all of the updates we have for now but thanks for reading and as always, we are truly truly grateful for your support. We’ll write again soon and stay posted for our Global Giving Holiday Campaign  (where we will also be partnering with Beth Springer Hand Bags)! As always, feel free to email us =)

Check out our GlobalGiving page!

GROW 2011: Photos

Take a look at some of the great photos our GROW team was able to capture at the RVCP this summer!

GROW Trip 2011

Every year, a group of GlobeMed GW students participate in the GROW Trip, giving us the opportunity to work directly with our partner organization, the RVCP, in supporting the Huye Health Clinic Initiative and the Maternal Health Education Program (MHEP).

This year, we at GlobeMed GW were able to raise sufficient funds to allow the construction of a waiting room for the clinic, allowing the old waiting room to be converted to consultation rooms for patients.  Additionally, we were able to fund the purchase of 50 goats and a plot of land for 50 women selected for MHEP sessions.

On this GROW Trip specifically, out team was able to create an evaluation system to track and report the effectiveness and progress of the Maternal Health Education Program.  The team was also able to attend the majority of the education sessions to ensure that they were worthwhile and effective for the women.  Finally, the team was able to help the RVCP in educating the women, teaching them methods to maximize the effectiveness of the sessions.

To learn more from the GROW Team and to read their personal accounts of the trip, visit their blog: Writing Rwanda.

Progress on the Waiting Room

The new waiting room at the Huye Health Clinic (HHC) has begun to take shape, after much fundraising and planning on the parts of GlobeMed GW and RVCP.

A much welcomed addition at HHC, the waiting room will afford women waiting to be seen at the clinic a sheltered location, keeping them and their children safe from the sun and heat. Before the waiting room, women and their children who walked (potentially) miles to be seen at the clinic would have to sit in the direct sunlight, creating a serious health risk in and of itself.

With the addition of the waiting room, GlobeMed GW advances its goals of augmenting the maternal healthcare potential of the HHC. Make sure to take a look at the pictures below to check out the progress that has been made so far!

To help GlobeMed GW achieve these goals of maternal healthcare and maternal education and to learn more about the RVCP, visit our GlobalGiving page!