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.