The Grassroot Soccer trainers were amazing! We picked them up in Solwezi. on a Sunday evening and they ran an amazing course for our Community Sports League coaches and FAAP (FORGE AIDS Awareness Project) employees on Mon-Wed. I have so much respect for their programming and the curriculum. It's all about teaching youth about making choices, planning for their future, developing support networks and focusing on education/health/soccer. A very cool organization. http://www.grassrootsoccer.org The refresher training course really brought our employees together and revitalized the coaches for the coming year. We're hoping to get as many youth as possible to participate in the curriculum this year.....without strong clinical and treatment options in Meheba at this point, it makes a lot of sense for us to put as many resources into education programs as possible.
On Wednesday we had a farewell party at the compound. We had a big bonfire in the courtyard and lots of food and dancing. Sad to be leaving, it really seems like the time has gone by incredibly quickly. I talked at length that night with my friend Taban, one of our CSL coaches who is just an all-around incredible person. He is a Sudanese refugee who Joe and I are interested in sponsoring to attend college. (FORGE provides formal sponsorship through its education fund for primary and secondary education for vulnerable students; it will occasionally connect sponsors from the U.S. with individuals interested in tertiary studies, but the system is much more informal) He would like to study medicine in Lusaka and then return to southern Sudan to work. I'll write more about him soon....his life story is very moving and he is a super intelligent person....
Friday the community had a very cool event called the Ubuntu Forum. It is an annual debate organized by the FORGE Women's Centre....the community chooses a topic and invites people to speak on both sides of the issue. Last year the topic was: can a man rape his wife? This year the topic was: is condom distribution beneficial to the community or does it promote bad behavior? I felt like it was the Super Bowl, at least for our project, and although I was pretty pumped up/anxious about the whole thing, I sat in the back and took notes on the debate. It was pretty impressive that the community came together for such a thorough conversation about morals, religion, health, etc. Afterwards there was a lot of hugging and exchanging contact information. Kind of emotional. Saturday morning we got up very early and drove to Lusaka.
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