Two days ago I finally began using the String Game board with the students at the OVC school. This was the resource that I was trained in with other volunteers at a UNICEF sponsored workshop last November. It has taken awhile to get started--we did not get our boards until Jan, and I've been rather busy this past month with other projects. But the kids and the teachers loved it! I have never seen them debate issues so much!

The story is about how HIV comes into a place called "Nobody's Village" through a man who works in the city (Joburg is commonly used). HIV then spreads to his wife, her unborn child, his high school sweetheart and a teenage girl who he rapes. And from there, it will continue to spread in the next few installments. The story takes ~3 hours to tell in entirety, so I only told the first bit. The students are eagerly awaiting the next one!

I was hoping that this would work out this well, but I was not certain that it would really get through to them. I was happy, then, when they reported some of the things that they had learned. There was not much new information about HIV, since I'd taught them most of it last year, but they said that they knew more about STIs and one boy even answered that he'd learned that "when a girl is raped, she can have pain". It was shocking that that was an insight for him, but I'm glad he has learned it! I'm looking forward to continuing this in the weeks to come and then starting with the community! Hopefully other social factors surrounding HIV will be brought to light for them.