World Refugee Day

This morning we went to a celebration for UNHCR and World Refugee Day. We marched in a procession to open a (small) ceremony. It was pretty neat. Met a few of the UNHCR Lusaka officials we have been emailing with the past few months. Then we ran by IOM but couldn't get a meeting with the woman we wanted to see.

Next we stopped at SFH (Society for Family Health) and had what I consider to be one of the best meetings of my life. SFH has a division called New Start that does voluntary testing and counseling (VCT) all over Zambia. They have a functioning office in Solwezi, the nearest town to Meheba. They have a mobile clinic that does VCT, and also recommended to us another NGO that has a mobile clinic for antiretrovirals (ARVs).

My biggest fear concerning this summer has been that we will be unable to connect the Meheba community with any sort of specialized health care (either in the settlement itself or in Solwezi) because it just does not exist that far from Lusaka. Infrastructure is so limited! Literally I have been losing sleep for months over how we are going to improve VCT uptake....things are looking promising so far. It is amazing how much more effective a face-to-face meeting is compared to months of an email chain.

So we basically flipped out...I hugged the two women at SFH...they are giving us two free boxes of condoms with leaflets attached to the wrapper with really excellent illustrated instructions for condom use + facts about sexually transmitted diseases. This leaflet is amazing...might save us a little bit of time in terms of explanations of the importance of condom use. We also promised we would buy $100 of their social marketing condoms once in Solwezi. SFH felt like a really good place.....very good to know that they exist in the world.

Had a shawarma for lunch (reminds me of VILA/Quito) and ran back by the flat to put on flip flops. Next we have a meeting with the Lusaka distributor for Axios, a company that donates rapid HIV tests and some ARVs for use in African countries. This man donated 1,000 rapid tests for our project last week. Hopefully he can help us get the remaining supplies we will need for test administration--more latex gloves, blood tubes, blotter solution, etc etc.

We are leaving early tomorrow morning to drive out to Meheba. Fingers crossed that there are no issues with diesel along the way.