PC/Rwanda GAD

Whitney Goldman

Health 3

Nyaruguru District

Last week, I was privileged enough to participate in the 8th Annual National Pediatric Conference on Children Infected and Affected by HIV and AIDS.  The conference theme, “Strengthening Community Outreach for Equitable, Effective and Sustainable Response to HIV Among Children in Rwanda” was particularly relevant to Peace Corps volunteers’ mission and work at the grassroots level. 

The conference included 4 major themes: 1. Family as a key source of information to improve knowledge on HIV prevention for adolescents and young people, 2. Strengthening Rwanda community engagement to adequately use quality child protection systems to mitigate the impact of HIV among vulnerable children, 3. Community engagement toward elimination of mother to child HIV transmission, 4. Strengthening community ownership for equitable, effective, and sustainable response to HIV care and treatment among children in Rwanda.  Each topic was addressed at either morning or afternoon sessions over the course of two days.  While many interesting topics were covered, for the purposes of this post, I’d like to highlight the disproportionate disease burden of HIV on young women in Rwanda, some recommendations that came as a result of the conference, and highlight the contributions PCVs in Rwanda are making to meeting those recommendations.

One topic discussed across presentations was the disproportionate prevalence of HIV among adolescent girls relative to their male counterparts.  According to a presentation by Dr. Placidie MUGWANEZA, the prevalence of HIV+ persons among 15-49 year olds is 3.7% for females and 2.2% for males.  The proportional discrepancy is larger when looking exclusively at youth. Prevalence among youth aged 15-19 is 0.8% for females and 0.3% for males. Presenters pointed to this data as evidence for a need to create programming targeted to young girls in an attempt to reduce their risk of contracting HIV.

Conference attendees cited the need to move from large-scale national campaigns to community-based programming to protect girls from SGBV and the “sugar daddy” effect while also increasing access to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services.  Specifically, participants pointed to the “SINIGURISHA” (I am not for sale) campaign, running from 2009-2010. The campaign brought awareness to the issue of girls and young women having sex in exchange for money and material goods, but did not include specific and targeted programs to confront the reasons young girls participate in this exchange.

As GAD Vice-Chair, I want to highlight the efforts Peace Corps volunteers in Rwanda are making to address the unique needs of adolescents in SRH. Working largely in schools and health centers across the country, volunteers serve as grassroots implementers for community-based health programming.  Most notably, volunteers continue to plan and implement youth development camps and school clubs, tackling the difficult topic of SRH with young people.  Camps and clubs strive to tackle both the biological (HIV and STI disease progression, transmission, prevention, and family planning methods) and social (Self-esteem, goal-setting, peer pressure, leadership skills and opportunities) components of SRH in a judgment-free, youth-friendly environment. I’m proud to be part of a program and organization that has a commitment to developing a discourse around these important topics and providing tangible skills to kids living and studying at our sites throughout Rwanda. 

Each year, we continue to build the capacity of our community partners to take the lead in hosting camps. Additionally, we improve the model through sharing best practices annually, as it expands to more communities in Rwanda. As we’re back in full-swing camp season, I would like to wish everyone hosting GLOW and BE a happy and successful camp and express my gratitude for your hard work.  Keep up the good work!

If you haven’t read or seen pictures from Peace Corps Rwanda BE (Boys Excelling) and GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) programming, take a look through previous posts on this blog.