It’s become difficult to work in the Tikondane offices because the group are always hanging around eager for something to do. You have to bear in mind that this was the group that only a month ago had gone from my favourite to bottom of the pile as they were failing to turn up outside of pay day. In the last two weeks they’ve done more activities than in the entire four months I’ve been here. I’m feeling so positive that I’m willing to put in writing that I think it’ll continue like this for a while. We’ve just been given a bit of money to play with from funds left over following the depreciation of the Zambian Kwacha last year and another VSO, Amanda, has arrived to work for the consortium as a ‘Resource Mobiliser’.
My favourite activity of the past week has to be watching Tikondane Youth perform a ‘skit’ (drama) on the theme of alcohol abuse and STIs. Thirteen of us plus four drums piled into the nine seater Land Rover and swayed our way down the hill to Referendum, a compound just outside of town. I was a little nervous as the group had chosen to perform outside a bar full of young men downing cartons of ‘Chibuku’ or ‘Shake Shake’ the locally brewed toxic milky mush that, according to its own marketing is ‘found in established and questionable joints everywhere.’
Despite the location, their story of a school boy influenced by his alcoholic father who gets drunk, has unprotected sex, passes an STI to a friend and gets expelled went down a storm. They even managed to get some questionnaires filled in that I’d introduced as part of my less exciting role as the nagging monitoring and evaluation geek. We’ll have to do a bit of a rethink as many identified the main message as ‘school boys shouldn’t involve themselves with alcohol and drugs’ – which is ok but absolves the out-of-school youth (majority of the audience) of any need to change their behaviour.
There’s been a problem with getting the peers to turn up on a regular basis at Chisomo. However, things have picked up since the end of last month when, at the insistence of the more dedicated group members, we cut allowances for non-attendance. It was one of the toughest things I’ve had to do here. We introduced a policy of deducting from allowances during the first month or so after I arrived but it hadn’t really been implemented. Cecelia, Chisomo’s Behaviour Change Coordinator who I work alongside, found it really hard sticking to her guns when faced with excuses such as ‘I was at a funeral for the whole week’ or ‘I had to take my dog to the hospital.’ (That’s probably a little harsh, but so often attending your next door neighbour’s, gardener’s, daughter-in-law’s, uncle’s funeral is used as an excuse to be absent at work for a few days. And, I had a little cold last week and everyone without fail decided they were a doctor, diagnosed me with Flu, asked me what medication I was on and if I’d been to the clinic.) Still, sitting behind a desk withholding what, to many of the volunteers is their only source of income, I felt like Scrooge at Christmas and could see why Cecelia had found it so difficult. The money goes straight back into the, normally empty, youth project pot which is great especially as a big room has just been cleared for us to begin setting up a youth-led resource centre. Don’t ask me how you set up a resource centre without any resources, but that’s next weeks problem!
The group at Chisomo have finally reached the conclusion that drama is not really the right tool for what they want to do which is great because their strength lies in acting as themselves. A number of the girls have babies, when I first arrived I thought that this was a bit of a contradiction – they were preaching abstinence and safe sex with a baby clinging to their back. However, I’ve come to realise that young people here (just like the UK) won’t respond to angelic, holier than thou role models that are as far removed from reality as Inspector Gadget. Annie Zulu is HIV positive and has just had a little baby boy who is negative and if she continues to follow all the PMTCT (prevention of mother to child transmission) precautions he should stay that way. Young expectant mothers and young women are much more likely to listen to her reflecting on her own situation and follow her good example, get tested and protect their future children or learn from her mistakes and protect themselves.
Instead of drama, Chisomo youth have been out and about in their target zones conducting one-on-one discussions with their peers. The weekly ‘Go Round’ (courtesy of P&P) during our meeting finally served its purpose when they spoke of the challenges their peers had presented them with and gave each other sound advice on possible solutions. Hurrah!
As for KK, I’m going to forget about the past week when the peer educators all but told me they wanted to quit. They claimed the manager was getting them to do lots of the leg work and pocketing the proceeds. And that they couldn’t type up their articles for their youth magazine because they got dirty looks every time they used the office computer that usually sits idle. A couple of hours before the manager told me that the youths had been spreading rumours about her stealing donor money and that she had half a mind to ask the coordinator (who is unpaid) to leave. This feud has been going on for a while and my previous attempts to open some channels of communication between the two warring factions have been unsuccessful. I arranged to meet with the manager on Friday to agree setting aside a time when the peers could use the office computers and reinstate monthly project update meetings – she called in sick!
…but I’m not thinking about last week! The one before that was much more positive. The peer educators had collected ‘To the Editor’ letters from local secondary school students and we decided to use them as the basis for the first edition of the KK Youth Magazine. I’m hoping that this will be a good way of showing that we are truly youth-led and that the magazine will reflect issues important to young people in Chipata and then we’ll have donors lining up to support us…here’s hoping. We’re responding to letters about masturbation, rape and child defilement, corruption, education, smoking, prostitution among other things. You’ll all be pleased to know we’re including a short step-by-step guide about how to use a condom correctly and attaching a condom discreetly to the inside cover of the Mag.
And to top it all off Amanda, a new VSO volunteer has arrived to join the Chipata crew. And she’s great, really positive, upbeat and the icing on the cake is that she’s an experienced fundraiser and her job for the next two years is to get us some money!
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