August 03, 2006
Balanie and Bolle
After weeks of work and teaching, the pilot of the Here Bolo project culminated in the Balanie de L’Espoir, which took place in downtown Sikoro. Each peer educator brought something unique and different to the celebration as they talked about how hope, identity/testing, transmission, marriage and family, and community relate to AIDS, and how knowledge about these points could be used to conquer HIV. Around four o’clock, people began to trickle down to the goudron, and by five o’clock, it was packed. Dr. Kone opened the Balanie, introducing Ramatoulaye, Bay (my new colleague) and myself. Although Dr. Kone, Rama, and all of the peer educators spoke in Bambera much of the time, I understood each person’s message perfectly through their emphatic gestures and strong voices. While I drafted an initial script for the Balanie that corresponded to the program curriculum, I gave the peer educators a lot of liberty in how they wished to convey their message, and they each did a spectacular job. My favorite interpretation was done by one of Aleema, one of our female peer educators, who held a condom and thrust it in men’s faces when talking about fidelity. Overall, the Balanie was a great success. However, since a few peer educators are medical/nursing students and have exams in August, the program will not resume again until September. In the mean time, Bay and I are preparing folders with all of the necessary materials - the curriculum, a list of each peer educator's responsibilities, etc. - so that Dr. Kone and Ramatoulaye will be able to easily begin work again in the fall.
This week, Rama, Dr. Kone, Bay taught the program at another site – Bolle, the women’s prison in Bamako. I have to admit I was a little apprehensive of teaching in the women’s prison when it was first proposed as a site, but after I met with the warden, Madame Diarra, I was immediately convinced that not only was it a great idea, but an enormous opportunity. I first met Madame Diarra at the beginning of July with Dr. Kone and Sophie Sprecht (a member of the GAIA Board), and she is an incredible woman. She explained to us that the majority of the inmates at Bolle are former prostitutes, and that she is working to establish each inmate’s economic power so that they won’t have to turn to prostitution again upon release. Thus, Bolle has programs that teach women a trade, and the prison runs a soap-making and fabric-making business. I visited the prison for the first time two weeks ago, and the center where I am working looks nothing like a prison at all (the high-security center is located elsewhere). The prison actually resembles a small village – there is a large compound that houses a day-care center, a classroom, and the bedrooms are dormitory style. Because the majority of the women are illiterate and very few speak French, we are running Here Bolo as a lecture series rather than a peer education training program at Bolle. When Bay and I speak, Malick translates from French to Bambera for us, and the women have responded very well. At the end of yesterday’s session, many of them asked where they could get tested for HIV, so Dr. Kone, Bay and I are meeting with Madame Diarra tomorrow in order to take steps to set this up.
Posted by Madeline DiLorenzo at 11:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
