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.