AIDS Competence with the Indigenous People of Guyana

[Autry Haynes]

The National Toshaos Council (NTC) comprising 157 Amerindian villages/settlements is in receipt of grant funds from UNDP to implement AIDS Competence targeting governance level.
In the first instance the executive members [20 members] and two other village
council members will be engaged in the building of AIDS Competence techniques.
The approach then engages four villages’ council and other leaders [youth,
religious, women’s group and sport groups] in the respective villages. The specific objectives are: [1] Self Assessment of the NTC executive
of their capacity to address HIV and [2]
to empower all Amerindian villages to take ownership of addressing threats of
HIV at the community level.

The
project will be implemented over six months and will include self assessment
and actions plans in achieving dreams; then after six months a follow-up
assessment to evaluate achievements based on priorities and plans set out in
the initial assessment. Successes and lessons learned will be developed into a
model for implementation in other villages

[Paula Sampson]

Thank you for you hand of frienship. There were quite a few experiences that were taken away from both the Ministry's and Prison's visits that Autry shared about. It is quite remarkable how sharing information can cause some people to be honest and open about their lives despite - 1. in the Ministry one female shared her past and is now eager to add some SALTiness in her life to live her dream; 2. one of the inmates openly declared "me aint know fu write but ah ( meaning I) understand and ah gun remember and do it".
3. Many of hem expressed ignorance of the dangers they exposed their spouse(s) to all in the name of maleness. In addition some of the inmates wanted to become a part of a programme when they are released.
Even as they were expressing I too was enlighten to the dangers I had been exposed to. Maybe by some insight into my thoughts Aleta, one of our team members remarked,"how many times do we really examine our lives as is relevant to these very issues?". That is a question for us all to ponder.

[Gaston]

Autry, this is excellent news on my first day back to work. This is a great next step. Looking forward to share more on this and see how the local facilitators can best approach this.

[Phil]

Autry, this sounds like a very interesting project. It will be very interesting to hear about the progress of the work and the results of the follow-up assessment in your blog. Guyana is making huge progress. Well done!
Best regards
Phil