Skills Development in Livelyhood and Health- Newsletter

Sarah and Sam, KACCAD Vols, Sept, originally uploaded by amanda.milholland.

Photo of Sarah Beal and Musisi Sam

By Musisi Sam

Dear friends, we are proud to introduce to you our third quarter newsletter. As usual, we have been working with 3 secondary schools, 3 vocational schools, and now, with 1 primary school. Like before we have been teaching about HIV/AIDS, reproductive health, teen pregnancy and life skills. The program seems to bring a very big impact in the lives of many every single day. This impact is mainly due to the testimonies and questions given and asked by all classes of people we teach: students, teachers, and parents. For example, many people seem to have been confused by the proper use of condoms and how safe they are. We discovered this based on the type of questions students and teachers ask such as: “They told me that condoms have small holes around its tip so can’t I get HIV when I use it?,” “My friends told me that it is more safer to use 2 condoms at a go,” “Do virgins also get HIV infected?” and so many other questions. So we have been doing a lot of education to help our students get the right information.

Coupled with our education work in health and empowerment, we are blessed with a volunteer, Joanna, who works for a business school in Switzerland. I have been working with Joanna to teach basic business skills and budgeting at Kikaaya Vocational School, Hajji Kiyembe Vocational School, and to community and women’s groups. In addition to teaching vocational students, community members and women’s group participants, we have been teaching the young girls who are school dropouts around our community who were organized by Mr. Mubiru Charles, the head teacher Kikaaya Secondary and Vocational schools to attend the one month program. Those skills are very vital to all people in the business community to improve their work so as to improve their livelihoods. I hope it will create a big impact on all communities we are serving since it is among the skills needed urgently by our people.