Preparing for Eastern Region GLOW Camp by James D

James D
Nyagatare, Eastern Province


In about one week, volunteers in the Eastern Region of Rwanda will be putting on a GLOW Camp. As you may already know, GLOW stands for Girls Leading Our World. It is a weeklong camp for secondary school girls to learn about life skills, as well as HIV and malaria prevention, and sexual health. Volunteers throughout the region are bringing students, senior facilitators, junior facilitators, or all three. Since I still do not currently have a GLOW Club at my school (although, I did just meet the headmaster the other day, so fingers crossed that one can be started in the near future) I am in charge of the career panel, monitoring and evaluation, and the malaria component of the camp.

Not only is the Eastern Region providing bed nets for all campers for use during the camp and to take home, we will also be implementing the Grassroot Soccer Skillz Malaria intervention throughout the week. Grassroot Soccer is a nonprofit organization that focuses on HIV/AIDS education in Africa, with pilot programs in Eastern Europe, Latin America, and South-East Asia. Grassroot Soccer also has interventions on malaria and women's empowerment. Last March, Grassroot Soccer came to Peace Corps Rwanda and provided a weeklong training on the HIV and malaria interventions and will host another training this fall. I also had the opportunity to see the full Skillz Malaria intervention in action at the STOMP Out Malaria in Africa Boot Camp hosted in Theis, Senegal, this past June.

You may be wondering, how is malaria related to gender? One of the most at-risk populations for malaria are people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). According to the Rwanda Biomedical Center's Gender Assessment of Rwanda's National HIV Response, "Rwanda's HIV prevalence is 3.0% in the general population aged 15-49, but is higher among women (3.7%) than among men. (2.3%)" Also, the report concludes that young women aged 18-19 are ten times more likely to to acquire HIV than men of the same age.

Co-infection of Malaria and HIV/AIDS is a major cause of death in sub-saharan Africa. According to the WHO, HIV increases the risk of malaria infection, especially severe malaria in adults and in turn malaria increases HIV replication. Both of the diseases cause over 2 million deaths each year, and due to their increased risk of co-infection, it also increases the transmission of malaria each year.

At the Eastern GLOW Camp we will teach both about HIV prevention and malaria prevention, and hopefully the girls will really take in the information that they learn and continue the giant steps Rwanda is making towards an AIDS free generation. Tuzareba!

"I'll Make a Man Out of You" by Max M.

Max Marsland
Nyaruguru District, 
Southern Province

When I was a junior in college, I wrote a paper for a class on America in the 1970s about a “crisis of masculinity” in American culture. In the aftermath of Vietnam, the Women’s Rights Movement and Second Wave Feminism, the emerging Gay Rights Movement, and the loss of faith in established authority due to Watergate, I saw that sports movies showed an attempt to rediscover what it meant to be an American man. What they showed was men losing; in Bad News Bears the underdog team and washed-out coach lose the big game, in Slapshot the team plays honestly for their final game and loses, and in Rocky Sylvester Stallone, the epitome of a traditional, working-class American man, gets beaten in the title fight by Apollo Creed. These films reflected what was happening in America then, and some of what’s happening in Rwanda now: in the wake of great social changes and increased opportunities for women, young men and boys don’t know what it means to be a man.

So, Rwandan men are in a predicament here: how can they react to women who are being empowered? I don’t have the answer; as an outsider, I and many other male PCVs are in a difficult position. I want to show Rwandan men and boys how to behave like how I think a modern man should, but there are some problems with this: as an outsider that isn’t my place, and frankly I’m not 100 percent sure what it means to be a modern American man. The best thing I can come up with is don’t feel threatened. Women’s empowerment isn’t at the expense of men’s; “power” in society isn’t a zero-sum solution. Roles shift and change over time, in every culture and every place in the world. Women in America have been fighting for their rights for decades and men are not worse off by it. I can’t think of a reason it can’t be the same here. “A rising tide lifts all boats.”

I realize it’s difficult to not feel threatened; change is intimidating and scary (I think every PCV can attest to this). But, as difficult as it is, have faith. Many of the women I have met here are amazing people, who want to do incredible things to benefit their families, communities, and country first, themselves second.

Masculinity doesn’t need to be in crisis. It’s OK to not know exactly what it means to “be a man” because then you’re free to find it out for yourself, and define it how you feel comfortable defining yourself. This can only happen when you aren’t feeling under attack, when you are free to be yourself and pursuit your path without fear. You do you. As one of my favorite artists once said: “However you’re choosing to live your life is beautiful.”