Health Team Activities Update

As I said yesterday, the Health team participated in the visit to KCMS. They started the visit off with a game to address issues of stigma towards people living with HIV/AIDS. The kids were playing with a ball when Patrick (one of our Ghanaian team members) told Sabrina and Yuuki (our Japanese team member) that they were not allowed to play because they had HIV/AIDS. After some hysterics from those two, one of the children confronted Patrick (much to our pleasure), telling him that you can't get AIDS by playing games.

The second activity at Kor Kor's was a condom demonstration and a Q&A regarding safe sex. This was followed by Yuuki reading a Japanese story in English with Bridgette (another Ghanaian team member) translating to Twi about the importance of washing your hands (watch out, Virusman will get you!!!)

The Health team has also undertaken the task of forming relationships with key community stakeholders. They have already met with the Regional Hospital's administration, the District Hospital, the Ghana AIDS Commission, and the Ministry of Education.

As one of the objectives of the Health team is to explore the prospect of a health curriculum at SPoly, the team conducted a needs assessment on campus. The support from the students (coupled with a healthy distribution of item 13) allowed for 165 reponses to their surveys in just over an hour. At this point they are still calculating the results but the general preception is very positive.

That's it from the Health team for now, many thanks to Jenn S for providing the update. They have a week packed with meeting, a health day at the primary school and a forum on HIV/AIDS so we'll keep you posted!