Tebelopele and the Zebras4Life Program

Yesterday I had another opportunity to get to know one of our partners a little better. Tebelopele is a local organization that provides free voluntary HIV counseling and testing services all over Botswana. They have been tremendously successful reaching well over half of the entire adult population of Botswana with their services over the past several years!

One point that I find particularly interesting about Tebelopele is the fact that this partner is not just supported by one PEPFAR agency, but it is really supported by all of the different US Government agencies in Botswana in different ways.

• The US Embassy in Gaborone supports Tebelopele's Zebras4Life and Test4Life campaigns, which engage the Zebra's national football team to help encourage youth and men to test. Their new Heros program builds on this program to use networks of other sports clubs to reach even further into hard-to-reach communities.
• Department of Defense has use humanitarian assistance funds to build 16 Tebelopele VCT centers around Botswana. Combined, these centers are within 50km of 90% of the population of Botswana.
• A little known fact about Tebelopele's history is that it originated as a CDC/BOTUSA project. All the original employees were actually CDC staff. As the project began to grow, CDC worked to "spin off" Tebelopele to stand on it's own as a completely independent local organization. CDC continues to support Tebelopele's activities, and as a result, Tebelopele is one of the largest local organizations to receive direct PEPFAR funding in Botswana.
• Another little known fact is that the Zebras4Life campaign originated as an idea from a Peace Corps volunteer. Across Botswana, Peace Corps volunteers continue to work with communities to generate awareness and encourage people to test using the Tebelopele services.

New projects are also coming along soon that aim to build upon the excellent work already being done by Tebelopele to reach even further into hard to reach communities. As we look back at the success of this program, the entire PEPFAR Botswana team can look to Tebelopele as a great example of what we hope to accomplish as an interagency team to build local capacity that makes a strong impact in Botswana.

US Ambassador & USAID Delegation Visit Partner Sites

On Friday, I tagged along with a delegation led by our Ambassador, Stephen Nolan, to visit two partners working in Tlokweng. The delegation included several people from our USAID Southern African regional office, who were in town reviewing the USAID Botswana portfolio.


BORNUS

The first site was BORNUS, the Botswana Retired Nurses Society. This organization is led by several dynamic women, who have managed to pull together resources to bring services to people living with HIV and AIDS, their families and the children in their community.

I think our favorite stop at the BORNUS center, was the wonderful children's day-care center that they have. The children were playing with puzzles when we arrived, and we all got to help them with the pieces.

BORNUS is an NPI Grantee, which means they receive direct US Government funding. This is a huge challenge, as it means they are required to comply with numerous, complex US Government rules and regulations. They do so with the support of a Technical Assistance provider, and the women who run the organization are clearly up to the task.

By the way, the BORNUS ladies would not let me leave without promising to promote their "Buy a Brick" fundraising drive. For just 3 pula per brick (less than $.50), you can help them build a new building for their day care facility. Visit their website, and contact them for more information.

Nkaikela Youth Group

Our second site in Tlokweng was also very moving. Nkaikela is an organization that reaches out to high risk women sex workers. The visit began with several young peer educators who told their stories of wanting a way out of sex work, finding the Nkaikela organization, and ultimately volunteering to help reach out to try to help other women. These amazing peer volunteers try to help support women who want to leave sex work, but also provide condoms, and condom negotiating skills to women who are active in sex work.

Nkaikela is a setswana word meaning "I can go myself." One of the challenges they told us about was the fact that there are women who want to exit sex work, but have difficulties finding alternative livelihoods. This is a complex challenge, made more difficult because of stigma, the lack of education that some of the women have, and simply the limited number of available job opportunities. However, the group is working to overcome all these challenges, and try to create opportunities to these vulnerable women in Tlokweng.

Nkaikela's work is supported by the USAID-funded program managed by RTI, which helps provide prevention services to most-at-risk populations.

Both BORNUS and Nkaikela are excellent examples of the types of organizations that PEPFAR Botswana hopes to reach. They were built by concerned members of the community who wanted to help their friends and neighbors, and have worked hard to find financial and technical resources to make this happen. The Ambassador and the USAID Southern African delegation all left with a better sense of the needs of these small organization and how we can continue to support their efforts.

(Photo courtesy of Thuy Pham.)

PEPFAR Botswana Team Discusses New Indicators & Reporting Requirements with Treatment and Care Partners

Today several of our PEPFAR Botswana team members opened a two-day workshop with our Treatment and Care partners to review the next generation indicators, semi-annual performance reporting templates, and to conduct some data quality assessment practicals.

Our acting Strategic Information Team Lead, Phenyo Lekone, gave a great presentation on the new indicators, and summarizing some of the stragegies that we'll be using to better describe the how PEPFAR-funded programs are supporting the Government of Botswana's national response.


I think the team has come up with a great strategy that will improve our semi-annual performance report, and allow it to be a tool that can be used to better communicate the positive impact our programs are having -- not only to OGAC and the US Congress, but also to the Government of Botswana, our partners, other donors, and civil society. We hope that biannual reporting process can be a time to engage all stakeholders in a discussion about the direction of the PEPFAR Botswana program.

Sometime in the next 6-8 weeks we'll start to share the results of this process on this site, so stay tuned!

Welcome to the PEPFAR Botswana Blog!

Hi! I'm Chris O'Connell, the PEPFAR Botswana Country Coordinator.

Just about every day since I've been in Botswana I hear something new and exciting about our program, or see the excellent work our partners are doing, or read an interesting technical article worth sharing. In addition, we often have information about our program that we're eager to share with our partners and colleagues, as well as with others who may be interested in learning more about PEPFAR.

So, what better way to share this information than through a blog? (Okay, I admit, I was inspired by my wife's recently launched Regional Environmental blog!)

So, stay tuned for program announcements, technical updates, success stories and hopefully some interesting discussions about the US Government's PEPFAR program in Botswana!