Martina's been shadowing

Today was our second shadowing of the project workers. Three of us went down to the trucker project again. We split up and myself and Theresa headed off with three of the outreach workers to meet the truckers and talk to them about the risks of HIV and do some Condom demonstrations. One thing that struck me about today was the relationship that the workers had with so many people around the halting site. We must have called in to at least four of the little outlet shops(Which also distributed condoms), a police point and many other gatherings where they chatted to the truckers and on all of these occasions managed to discuss the dangers of HIV/STI’S and demonstrate how to use a condom correctly. The banter along the highway today between ourselves and the outreach workers was brilliant. We really felt at ease and felt we definintely were not intruding on their work. At the end of the day we spent about an hour with all the workers discussing what we could learn from each other. They were eager for us to give them any suggestions on how they could improve their work. When they asked us this question the first thing that came to my mind was ‘I have never seen outreach work being so successful ‘. I voiced this and the workers were genuinely surprised. The dialogue was interesting and the three of us felt that this may have been the first time that any NGO’s have studied a project and asked advice from them instead of offering solutions!! This is definitely an outreach project that anyone can learn from and it was a spectacular experience!

Martina