Street Skillz at Teen Club

This blog entry is coming on the heels of a wonderfully relaxing long weekend in Lilongwe. Pretty much everyone in Malawi had the day off on Monday to celebrate the end of Ramadan – so I was able to relax a little bit after a fantastic Teen Club session on Saturday. It was only the second Teen Club I’ve ever attended but I already felt a lot more comfortable during the event. I actually felt like I was helping the kids this time, which is a huge turnaround from the last time when everything going on was a little dizzying. For all of you guys who don’t remember what Teen Club is, its basically a once a month event where Baylor Hospital in Malawi hosts about 100 HIV+ kids. The purpose of the event is to check up on each one of these kids on a regular basis to ensure that they are adhering to their ARV medication and that everything else is going well. But ultimately Teen Club is also an opportunity for HIV+ kids to meet other HIV+ kids and make new friends.

The Teen Club session this past Saturday was especially exciting because the GRS Malawi team decided to pilot the first ever “Street Skillz” session in this country. “Street Skillz” is a brand new GRS program that essentially combines playing soccer with HIV/AIDS education during the course of a soccer tournament. So during the day, kids will alternate between playing soccer games and then doing GRS activities like find the ball and my supporters (these are all activities that are designed to start discussions about the massive amounts of stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS). The soccer games themselves are special because GRS decided to inject a whole set of innovative rules that ensure that the game is about more than just soccer. So an example of some of the rules that we used during Saturday’s games include:

· A goal scored by a girl counts as double.

· Everyone on the pitch has to score after every goal, even if it means cheering for your opponent.

· Each team has to come up with a special team name and cheer. The team should perform this cheer before the game, after the game and after every goal.

· Players on the field are responsible for calling their own fouls.

Each one of the rules is designed to encourage the kids to be responsible, communicative, honest, and fair. The rules are also designed to involve girls as much as possible. GRS is actively trying to increase female participation in soccer and other sports. One of the most striking statistics that I’ve heard since I’ve been here is this one: FIFA estimates that less than 1% of the world’s 260 million soccer players are female. And all the Research has shown that female participation in sport improves school performance, reduces rates of unwanted pregnancies & STI and delays sexual debut. So involving girls in soccer and other sports is just one more way to help in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

All in all the day was a huge success. The main reason we decided to pilot “Street Skillz” in Teen Club is because we were having a hard time finding an engaging activity for the older kids in the program. In the past, Teen Club in Malawi has had a lot of problems with problematic/disinterested 17 year olds who end up distracting the younger kids. So we thought that by using “Street Skillz” we would simultaneously engage the older kids and also create a less distracting environment for the younger kids who come. The idea ended up working out really well because the older kids felt special and privileged when they were allowed to play soccer, these feelings made them more willing to engage in the activities and have fun. During the planning process, a lot of people were worried that playing soccer with a group of HIV+ kids would be too risky and dangerous considering the health of each child. I don’t need to tell you how fragile each kid on ARVs is, and obviously one bad fall etc. would be potentially disastrous to them. Fortunately no one got injured and everyone came out of the day happy and healthy.

Between Rachel and I, we ended taking around 200 pictures of the kids during our “Street Skillz” session at Teen Club. I can’t tell you how hard I’ve been working to upload them onto this blog, but my Internet connection in Malawi is about as insecure as it gets so I’ve been having a lot of problems. Each time I try to upload a picture it estimates that it will take about 48 hours to successfully upload. As much as I love you guys I promise you that I don’t love you that much. It’s really a shame that you guys can’t see these pictures though because they are awesome. The first time I saw them I looked through all 200 of them four or five times because they made me so happy.

All of the pictures are amazing because in each one you can see how incredibly happy the kids are to be outside playing soccer. You can tell in each kid’s face that they feel normal and that they love the feeling. It’s really touching to think about because when you see these kids you know that they probably don’t have the chance to feel/act like normal kids very often. For a wide variety of reasons like stigma and discrimination most of these kids never have the opportunity to go outside and play soccer with the other kids in their village. So it felt really good providing these kids with the right environment to play and have fun. Hopefully I’ll get the pictures up soon, that way you can see first hand how happy the kids look. They’re all hugging after every goal, high fiving each other, dancing and smiling after every goal – it was truly an awesome thing to see. The more I think about it, the more I realize how important Teen Club is to these kids. Obviously Teen Club is important to them because it is where they get there month’s supplies of ARVs and where they get seen by doctors. But beyond that it is also important because it provides kids with a real chance to feel normal and be with kids who are similar to them. After I saw these kids leaving the soccer pitch on Saturday afternoon, I couldn’t help shaking the feeling that as soon as they left the field they were going to be thrown into this world where they were back to being “different” and “social outcasts”. As depressing as this feeling was, it also encouraged me to work extra and do my part to ensure that each session is as fun and fulfilling as possible. If these kids only get one chance and month to be normal, we better make sure that each session is as awesome as possible.

Over the course of the last four weeks, I’ve heard a lot of really unbelievable myths that surround the HIV/AIDS issue in South Africa and Malawi. I thought I would share some of these myths with you so that I can give you an idea of the challenges that we’re facing.

HIV/AIDS was created in a laboratory in the United States:

The belief is that Americans created the virus, and then came over to Africa to infect as many Africans as possible. As a result, many locals are suspicious of any westerners looking to come into their village for HIV testing.

If you become infected with HIV, you can get rid of the infection by having sex with someone else:

This is known as the “hot potato” myth. The idea here is that by having sex with someone else you are passing the virus onto someone else. Some people don’t realize that the virus will stay with you, and potentially infect your new partner if you decide to have sex. This myth seems to be a variation of the “have sex with a virgin” myth that seems to be more prevalent in South Africa. Both myths are obviously dangerous because they are encouraging HIV+ people to engage in as much sexual activity as possible.

If you pray, you will never get HIV/AIDS:

This myth presupposes that if you are a good Christian, or a good Muslim, you will never get HIV/AIDS. This myth is particularly dangerous because it makes people believe that as long as they pray, they are immune to the virus.

HIV/AIDS can be found inside many condoms, so if you use protection you have a higher chance of getting the virus:

This myth is just one more roadblock in the movement to get as many people to use protection as possible. It’s hard enough to encourage condom use in many of these areas because of religious or traditional problems, so this myth is the last thing that we need. This myth also corresponds with the first myth, because some people believe that it was the Americans who put the virus in the condom.

Jacob Zuma’s many HIV/AIDS myths:

In December 2005, Jacob Zuma, the current President of South Africa and the then head of the National AIDS council, was accused of raping an HIV+ woman. According to reports from the trial, Zuma was aware that this woman was HIV+ but he still decided to have unprotected sex with her. When asked why he did this, Zuma responded by saying: 1) He wasn’t worried about contracting HIV because women cannot give the virus to men. Only men can give the virus to men. 2) He wasn’t worried about contracting the virus because he took a shower immediately after sexual intercourse. Can you imagine the impact that these words had on the South African population? Because of this man’s words and actions, millions of people (and especially men) thought it was ok to have unprotected sex with HIV+ women as long as they took a shower afterwards. Keep in mind that this message was coming from the head of the National AIDS Council! This is the type of event that sets the HIV education movement back several years.

As you can see, there are many HIV/AIDS related myths that make our work here more difficult than it should be. These myths really prove to me how important HIV education can be though, because if we can move around and go around to as many communities as possible we can potentially dispel as many of these myths as possible.

In talking with many of our coaches, it seems like they have to deal with many of these myths on a regular basis. Many of them said that they spent more time than they would like to think about telling people that they should not believe these HIV/AIDS myths. Hopefully, by reaching as many different sites as possible we’ll be able to fight these myths and show people how much more effective it can be to learn HIV facts.

You may be surprised to hear this, but there are actually many more myths related to the fight against HIV/AIDS. Many of them are more directly relevant to stigma and discrimination (for instance, if you touch someone with HIV then you will contract the virus etc). If you want to hear any more about these common myths then hit me up at emunir@grassrootsoccer.org and we’ll talk about it.

Hope everyone is doing well. Been hearing a lot from people who are reading up on my adventures, so thanks for the support and hopefully we’ll continue to stay in touch. I’ve been trying to upload pictures for the past week but my Internet connection is too slow/insecure…but I’ll keep trying!

Door-to-Door Testing

So it’s almost the end of week number three in Malawi and I think I’m finally starting to develop some semblance of a routine here. As you can probably imagine, it took me a little while to adjust to everything out here but now that I know a little bit about my surroundings I’m feeling great. Every day I eat at this delicious little tin shack called “Chez Sharif’s” which is run by the eccentric Indian/Malawian man and his wife. I’ve had lunch here every day since I’ve been here, a meal is approximately one dollar and it consists of a full chicken breast, a huge portion of rice, some salad, some cabbage, some green beans and a piece of Chapati (which is like Kenya’s form of Naan bread). Pretty good deal if you ask me. Of course you got the occasional pebble in your plate but this minor inconvenience is more than compensated for by the quality of the food and the price. I’m going to take a picture of Sharif and his wife soon and post it here so that you guys can meet him; he is one of a kind. My name around here is now “two thumbs up” because after my first meal at his restaurant he asked me how it was and I said “two thumbs up”. He had never heard the expression, and now he loves it. He calls me “two thumbs up” at least three or four times each meal.

Enough about Sharif though, onto the work I’ve been doing in my third week in Malawi. On Monday, Rachel and I had the honor of being invited to join some of our coaches in the Kawale district to help them with one of their door-to-door testing events. During these events, an HIV counselor accompanies a coach as they walk around their communities asking everyone if they want to get tested for HIV. Without much access to transport, this is the closest our program can come to service on wheels. Initially Rachel and I were convinced that we wouldn’t be allowed to participate in this activity because of confidentiality rules and other technicalities. But after really pushing for it, and talking it over with several American doctors and of course our local coaches, everyone decided that it would be fine for us to join them. As you can probably imagine, Rachel and I were initially pretty nervous and felt very out of place. But after we were welcomed into our first home all of this anxiety was dispelled by the hospitality of our Malawian hosts. I had fun going through all of the introductions for a couple of minutes, went through all of the embarrassment and humiliation as people slowly realized that I couldn’t speak a lick of Chichewa (local dialect). After all this was done, Rachel and I watched our coach and the counselor go to work. They explained the importance of the test, why it should be performed, and how it was done. They also explained what kind of actions would be taken if one of the tests turned back positive. This is when the reality of what was unfolding in front of my eyes hit me. For a little while, I think I forgot why we were there and I just started having fun meeting these new people. But as soon as the tests started I become terrified – what if it turns out that one of these kids discovers that he/she is positive right in front of my eyes? This wouldn’t be all that unlikely considering the national HIV prevalence in Malawi is around 13% and in some areas it is as high as 25%. What would I do if that happened? What would the child do? All of a sudden I became fixated on knowing the child’s status, all I could think about was how terrible it would have been if it turned out positive. Fortunately, all of the tests we took were negative – something which is fairly rare apparently. The rollecroaster of emotions that I felt through the whole process acted as a jolt to my system and ultimately made everything I'm doing here much more tangible.

I heard a lot about Baylor’s dependence on door-to-door testing before I got here so it was a real honor to be given the opportunity to participate. Apparently many people in the HIV field have hailed Baylor in Malawi for its door-to-door innovation – and now I can see why. It’s amazing because it reaches out to a percentage of the community that may never have tested otherwise. Many people cannot go to local clinics to get tested for a number of reasons: 1) they can’t afford transport. 2) they just aren’t aware that testing is available and free. 3) they are worried about the potential stigma if they are seen going to the HIV clinic to get tested. By going to people’s houses within the community, we are really targeting a group that may never have been tested otherwise – which you have to admit is probably one of the biggest aims that HIV testing has in Africa. All in all the whole experience was incredible for me, and I was happy to hear that being white and being in attendance may have actually helped the testing. At the first house we went to, we were supposed to test one GRS participant, a 12-year-old boy named Victor. After going to visit his house, and being introduced to the whole household and the neighbors and their neighbors we managed to convince 15 people to get tested. The whole thing took a long time but in the end it was worth it, because 15 more people got tested.

The one thing that really stood out for me as I went home after the event was the lack of male participation in the event. All 15 people that we tested were either females or little boys. We saw three men in the house and all three declined to get tested for whatever reason – which is kind of troubling. In training we learned all about “multiple concurrent partners” which is said to be one of the biggest contributing factors to the spread of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa. This is when young men and women decide to engage in multiple sexual relationships at the same time. As you can probably guess, in a conservative culture like the one in Malawi the vast majority of the time it is the male who decides to have multiple partners at once. While Rachel and I were sitting in Victor’s house, I kept thinking about how important it was for the men to test. Obviously I was happy to see all 15 women and children turn out negative tests, but I was also frustrated because I knew that all this meant nothing if the husband decided to get another girlfriend who was HIV+. If this happens, he would then potentially infect his wife, any newborn children, and maybe even anyone else in the household. After this experience, Rachel and I decided to think of ideas to get men more involved in our program so this is one of our major projects now.

Alright, I’m going to sign off now but I’ll try to write again this weekend. I’m working at my first general testing event on Saturday from 8 am until whatever time in the afternoon. There is going to be soccer, music and fun times all around. We managed to convince a player from the Malawian professional soccer league to attend so the children should be excited. I’ll take pictures.