Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Streets of Kigali- A few articles on Kigali

I found this article this afternoon which describes Kigali's streets. While nicely kept, there are no street names or at least street signs which means getting around Kigali is based on giving landmarks or telling the driver a neighborhood and then directing them to the place. If you don't know French, your ability to get somewhere goes down about 70%. Some moto taxi drivers speak basic English but if you want to end up where you are planning, they understand French way better.

For me, famous for my lack of direction, it has been quite a challenge explaining things to people. For instance, I had a party for my birthday and tried giving out directions. What I wrote out seemed extremely complicated but it was all land marked based. To get to my house you have to make 3 turns and describing them is not so easy. "Turn right when you see a red and white barrier in the middle of the road where you are not supposed to take a u-turn" "Turn at the school." "Continue down a small road." " Look for the house marked with a silver star or just look for my roommate's car outside."

Even my office building's address is "the pink buildings" on "the road to the hospital." The only way mail actually gets here is because we have a P.O. box but I still laugh every time I address a letter back to the states.

In b-school, when you talk Rwanda  it is frequently about its development process compared to Singapore's. The government is certainly making an effort to increase development, foreign investment, and decrease reliance on foreign aid. This article talks about Kigali's cleanliness, development goals, and reasons for such an emphasis on keeping the city clean. Plastic bags are illegal, people are paid to clean the streets as part of a poverty reduction program (and I swear I've seen people painting the pristine black and white lines at least 2 times since I've been here), and the last Saturday of every month is a mandated day of public service (mostly planting and cleaning). In the five months I've been here, they have put in reflectors on the streets and street lights that tell you how much time you have at the light. At the school near my house, the entire school spends the Friday before picking weeds, picking up trash, and beautifying the school. This upcoming weekend is this public service day, called Umuganda, and I plan on spending it cleaning in my neighborhood. There are signs everywhere designating where to go based on where you live and its highly organized. It's an awesome time to be here with the government's Vision 2020 policy and plans and seeing how PSI works with the government (and other NGOs) to help accomplish these goals.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Refresher Training: Ngoma

A few weeks ago (aka the last week of September) I spent a week in Ngoma helping with the 12+ refresher training for mentors. This training reviewed the training that they do with the girls each weekend, went over activities and got their creative juices flowing, and reviewed/updated them on the M&E tools.  Between the instruction and activities, we did ice breakers for them to do with the girls. The following photos are of the mentors doing the Human Knot ice breaker.







Moonlight VCT

Now that I have been in Rwanda a few months, I felt that it was important for me to see some of the activities that we do. I spend most of my time in the office so going in the field and seeing what we are collecting and analyzing data on gives me more of a connection with what we do.

Last night I had the opportunity to attend a Moonlight VCT (voluntary counseling and testing) event in Kigali. Our partner organizations implement these invents- one group does the actual counseling and testing and another puts on skits, songs, and entertainment while people wait for their test results.


These activities are held in areas with large amounts of people at risk. This particular one was held by the stadium, a place where there are lots of bars, sex workers, hotels, and foot traffic. The group that does the entertainment sets up a stage, puts on loud popular music and draws the crowd. People enter into the event and register when they arrive. They are given a number which is used for the VCT.
People register as they arrive for the event
The person in charge of this event walked us through the different components. Here she is explaining to our PSI Fellow how the system works.


Next we visited the laboratory. The lab technician explains the process of testing the blood. There are 3 tests that they can perform on the blood. If the result tests positively for HIV, they do additional tests to ensure that it is not a false positive.



Here he is showing us how they write all the tests in a logbook.


After explaining the lab we walked over the the tents where they did the actual testing and counseling. The photo is quite dark but you can see that people are in line waiting to be tested.


Here a counselor is counseling a patient. She explains to him the possible outcomes of the test before he takes it. Before reading the results, the counselors prepare the patients for possible results and next steps.


While they are waiting, the performance group entertains the crowd with music and dancing.


Here, two actors are performing a skit about a woman that gets pregnant and asks him to get tested with her. Here, he has just found out and is speaking with his friend about he does not want to get tested because he has been sleeping with many girls.



 He later decides that he should get tested, calls the girlfriend and they go to a moonlight VCT. Here they are anxiously awaiting results. They find out that they both tested negative and they shout for joy.



Monday, October 17, 2011

This made my day!

We received the following email (edited for privacy) from one of our 12+ focal points and it completely made my day. It's great to see how a project you are working on really takes off and affects the people involved in it!

"I would like to share with you a good idea that I observed in one of the teams of girls with their mentors. This initiative is a Sunday home visit between girls with the main objective to build solidarity among them. They make rotations to visit each girl and they make some surprise activities for those who have a birthday.  One parent was happy because a team  had visited her daughter."