Angaradebou HIV/AIDS Training

In lead up to World AIDS Day I helped a fellow volunteer, Jennifer Morgan, with a two day HIV/AIDS peer-educator training. At her local high school in Angaradebou (about 5hours north of Tchaourou), we trained 20 girls and 20 boys how to educate their peers about HIV/AIDS.

Day one included lots of games, activities and demonstrations.

Here are the girls practicing putting on condoms

and playing a game
By day two, it was clear the students knew their information, so we spent the day teaching them how to give presentations. You would be amazed at how little these kids know about presentations. They turn their back to the audience, they cover their mouths while talking, and they speak quietly. It’s absolutely horrible. So, we took the opportunity to teach these kids the life-long skill of giving presentations. After several attempts, the kids finally started to understand what we meant by: “speak loud” , “face the audience”, etc.

Here are a few pictures of them in action

We took a break while the kids practiced their presentations and went to the market. I brought my camera along and took a few photos : typical stuff: garlic, pepper, salt, ect.
beautiful bariba woman. I was quite surprised she let me take her photo.

After break, we reconvened and the kids gave their presentations. All succeeded. And in true Beninese fashion, we held a brief awards ceremony where the kids received peer-educator badges for participating. Here's Jen's favorite student

(me, favorite student, Jen)

And the group! (You can't quite see me....top right, white face)