One of the main purposes for our trip to Logologo was to take part in one of the community conversations. Even though the wedding meant that it didn't happen on the Saturday afternoon, eventually people trickled in and the conversation began on the Sunday morning - only about an hour after when we expected it might start! Let me begin by giving you a little background about these community conversations. Sauti Moja has developed this innovative approach to both prevent and to strategize ways to care for those living with HIV/AIDS. It begins with a year long process of monthly meetings with a core group of leaders who have been identified by their communities. Over the year they develop a relationship with each other, and begin to identify what the issues might be in terms of the disease and the impact on their communities. Once they have worked on educating themselves and each other about the issues involved, then they can begin to develop some action plans for prevention, testing, treatment and care. It is very important that this phase not be rushed so that they can get to the core of what the issues are and not just come up with "band-aid" type solutions - the hope is that they will initiate plans that lead to social change - plans that will have a long-lasting effect for the health of their communities, and the families living in those communities. So, this group in Logologo has just been meeting for a few months now - they are very much in the beginning phase. Here is a picture of part of the group who were were there:
Part of the challenge of these conversations is to create an environment where all who are there feel free to speak their minds. For those of us from the Western world, it is easy to take for granted the freedom of speech that we enjoy. For these cultures here in Kenya, it is sometimes difficult for women to have the courage to speak their minds - especially women from the more traditional communities where perhaps they haven't had the opportunity for education. This group appeared to have a pretty good cross-section of representatives among the women. Here is one of the women who appeared to be a little more vocal than some of the others:
The whole conversation was done in Swahili - translated into Rendille for a couple of the people there who didn't speak any Swahili. Tim told them there was no need to translate into English since this was their process and really wasn't about us at all. What that meant was there was much opportunity to observe the patterns of who was speaking the most. When I was studying for ministry, we used to draw maps of the patterns of conversation - you can generally track who has the most power and the most influence in the group by who is doing the most speaking, and watching who it is they are directing most of their conversation to. So, part way through the time, Tim stood to say that even though he couldn't understand what they were saying, he had noticed that every man in the circle had spoken at least once, but that some of the women had not spoken at all. He said that he wanted to make sure that it was an equal conversation, and that the women knew that their opinions were very important - he encouraged the women to speak up a little more. It was soon after that that we noticed this group of women beginning to speak a little bit more:
One of the things that was encouraging was that some of the younger women were actually being very honest in the conversation, even in the presence of two of the older men in the group. Traditionally, older men do not show any interest in whatever it is that a younger woman has to say. But these men appeared to genuinely consider what it was that was being said by the women in the group.
There were times the conversation was very animated - particularly when the women started to speak their minds. The conversation was focused around polygamy, which is generally an accepted practice in this culture. However, it is clearly one of the ways that HIV/AIDS can be spread. And so they were debating the pros and cons of such a practice. I will leave it to you to consider who would be speaking up in favour of polygamy! This particular conversation lasted for about an hour and a half. The group was made up of 2 or 3 representatives from the various sub-villages around Logologo - some of them had walked 10 km in order to be there for the meeting! After we left, 6 of them would be staying for some facilitator training. Nashipai is a Massai woman from Tanzania, and is on staff with Sauti Moja. She has been involved with the community conversations in Tanzania for about 5 years. So she stayed in Logologo to do the training for 3 days - giving them training in facilitating 12 sessions for these community conversations. They will continue to be part of the larger group in the initial picture I showed you. However, with the extra training they have received, they may be able to eventually initiate these community conversations in their own villages. After a year of these conversations, once all 12 sessions have happened, they will begin to identify some of the micro projects that they could start in their own communities. Some examples of these micro-projects might be to support a counselling centre for women about the disease, its treatment, and care for those infected; or perhaps some trained male youth might begin an education program about condom use and behaviour change; or perhaps there might be some education provided around migrant workers - for those young watchmen who work in Nairobi for long periods, encouraging them to adopt sexual practices that will avoid infecting those who live at home. It is up to the group to come up with their own projects, and Sauti Moja will provide the financial and technical support for developing these micro-projects. This community-based cycle never ends, as they continue to identify emerging issues and reflect on any achievements they have made. Here is a picture of Nashipai standing beside the dining facility at the women's centre:
Nashapai will return to Marsabit on Thursday so that she can fly back to Nairobi with us on Friday. It will be very interesting to hear from her how the training sessions went. It is an encouraging sign to see these communities involved and engaged in the work of building safe and healthy living situations for their own people.
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