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Sekolo Projects Inc.

Background
Over ten years, Namibia's life expectancy has fallen from 70 years to under 50. The UN predicts it will be 34 by 2010.

Poverty was already an issue in the days before HIV, with GDP at only $2,250 per head and 55% living on less than $85 a year. With the arrival and spread of HIV, orphaned children are now leading households and a country faces economic devastation.



The national government is focussed on its response, but has to pay substitute teachers' salaries, train new teachers, and pay the salaries and medical treatment for those already sick. Consequently, budgets for teaching HIV prevention in schools are not keeping pace with the disease and Namibia's teachers are under-prepared for the pandemic.

HIV is totally preventable and most upsetting of all is that partly through this under-investment, half of all Namibia's new infections are now in the 15-24 age group.

As prevention is the only cure for these young people, Sekolo works with Namibia's Ministry of Education to help train and equip their teachers.

We provide vital information workshops and teaching materials through a national network of school cluster groups. Through these workshops our message is the integrated 'ABC' of abstinence, faithfulness and consistent and correct condom use. We build on the ABC framework and go further, dealing with gender issues, stigma, testing, treatment and caring for people living with HIV AIDS.

It may seem bizarre that in schools where half the children are AIDS orphans, its HIV prevention teachers do not always know even the basic facts about HIV. But this is what we discovered during our monitoring and evaluation studies with the Ministry of Education.

We believe that dedicated teachers deserve to know current facts and how to lead discussions with teenagers. We encourage teachers to lead by example and get tested and to know their status. We believe teachers are best placed to give children the truth about HIV AIDS. We believe that our combined efforts will lead to behavior change and a reduction in youth infection.

Through its work, Sekolo strengthens the pivotal role of schools in a country sixty-six times the area of Connecticut but with under 2 million people. We work in harmony with other organizations delivering important services to people living with HIV and AIDS. ARV drugs can only provide lasting hope and effectiveness alongside strong and effective prevention education.

Sekolo's pilot stage of training workshops was supported by the government, United Nations agencies, US faith-based groups, companies donating in kind, and by scores of individuals donating $150 to support a school. The pilot is now complete - the project is proven, successful, tried and tested, with all in-country mechanisms and support in place. All we need now is the funding to take the project to scale.

The Our HIV ABC training workshops concluded in August 2006, bringing our totals to 921 teachers trained from 564 schools at 53 workshops in 11 regions.Click here to see the photographs.

If you participated in those workshops, click here to learn about our small grants for School AIDS Clubs.

If you or your community organization wish to learn more about Sekolo and Elizabeth's story, please contact her at the US address or e-mail on the contact page.

Elizabeth and her Nissan Sani in the forbidden diamond area near Lüderitz.