World AIDS Day and Christmas-time

PART I: WORLD AIDS DAY, 2011
November and December have been unofficially termed HIV/AIDS awareness months, as I have conducted a total of three separate events related to the cause during this time period. Ironically, the Philippines has a very low rate of HIV infection, especially compared to sub-Saharan Africa and other parts of Southeast Asia. You may be wondering then, why so much attention to this cause? Although rates are low in this country, they have been rising in the past 5 or 6 years at such a tremendous rate that officials are actually calling HIV/AIDS in the Philippines an epidemic. For example, while in 2005 there were approximately 200 reported cases (as I said, it is indeed a very low prevalence), in 2010 this had increased more than 7-fold to over 1,500 reported cases. I won’t bore you with lots of numbers nor with a lecture on HIV/AIDS (unless you are interested, in which case I can go on for hours!), but the bottom line is that the Philippines is one of only 7 countries worldwide in which HIV rates are increasing by 25% or more, while the majority of the world has seen stabilized or decreasing rates. With that background, I have set out on a mission to do as many HIV/AIDS related activities that time, money, and resources would allow!

The very first activity was a training hosted by Peace Corps last April, which spurred me to conduct a training of trainers for local teachers, government workers, and residential staff in July. My training then gave rise to two more trainings, one by a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) and one at our affiliated school, Grace Christian Mission Technical School (from here on GCMTS). The third HIV-related event was a World AIDS Week celebration in central Philippines with government health workers, students, Red Cross workers, and 9 other PCVs. Of the three activities, it was the second (the training at our school) that will be the most memorable, though not in any regards because it was the most successful. Quite simply, it was the most… how can I put it…. Filipino. Let me explain.

Recently a Peace Corps Volunteer (I believe from somewhere in Africa) posted a blog about how Peace Corps has taught her to accept failure. It was a fascinating post, not nearly as negative as it appears, about how the majority of projects planned as a PCV do not go in any way as volunteers expect. Two years of this “failure” create for PCVs a sort-of thick skin, bolstering our ability to accept, adapt, and move on. The development of this thick skin is a long and frustrating process, of which is still in the works for me. However after our World AIDS Day celebration at GCMTS, I think I have developed some pretty good calluses all over.

World AIDS Day is celebrated every year on December 1st. I didn’t want to miss out on this global day of awareness, so I collaborated with teachers at GCMTS to do a school-wide HIV/AIDS workshop. My contribution would be to train the teachers prior (sustainability, heck yeah!) so that they could lead the training on December 1st. I would also be in charge of a Break the Silence Campaign, an activity in which select students and I would take a vow of silence for a day to represent the people worldwide “silenced” by HIV/AIDS. This campaign would occur the day before World AIDS Day (well, the 29th rather as the 30th was a national holiday thus no school) to serve as advocacy and gather interest and curiosity among non-participating students about this topic.

I was pretty proud of the Break the Silence Campaign idea, and of the t-shirts explaining our Vow of Silence. Our t-shirts were meant to arrive by the 28th to be used the 29th as a lead-in to the workshop on December 1st. My brilliant plan was to distribute the t-shirts to the participating 20 students during morning ceremony on the 29th in order to present a strong visual message at the beginning of the day, representing our vow of silence and getting people talking about HIV/AIDS. The t-shirts did not, however, arrive until around noon on the 29th (the man delivering the t-shirts was having motorcycle trouble at 6:00 am that day; our Elementary Department principal finally went to meet him an hour away in town to pick up the t-shirts which he could not deliver, around 9:00 am; he took another two hours to get to their meeting spot for reasons still unknown, and the principal arrived back around noon; a total of six hours to retrieve 20 t-shirts…).

POP. That was the sound of my happiness bubble bursting. But if I have learned anything in the Philippines, it is that when officials and adults let you down, youth always save the day. And so they did. Those wonderful students, despite not having their message displayed across their backs, despite their confused peers, began their vow of silence with great proud smiles on their faces before I could add pomp and ceremony to the start of the campaign. When the t-shirts arrived at noon, the students threw them on with eager anticipation and the majority maintained their silence until the bell rang at 3:00. Despite only half a day of advertised silence and my anxious self storming around texting furiously, the students happily took their vow of silence and I became a proud teacher for one of the first times in the Philippines.







In the end, our message way displayed to the school as I had imagined, and those 20 students had become advocates for HIV/AIDS awareness. The actual World AIDS Day workshop, though it took an entire day rather than the morning we had allotted and though every technical difficulty imagined did occur and supplies ran short, was a success.


7 teachers trained over 200 high school, grade 6 and grade 5 students in HIV/AIDS education while I stood anxiously in the background trying to smooth the details. While almost nothing went according to plan I had that thick skin to thank for maintaining an air of near-calm, and in the end, just as with the Break the Silence Campaign, we accomplished our goals.


GCMTS students from World AIDS Day


PART II: CHRISTMAS TIME AND THE CHARITY SPIRIT
The remainder of December has been a wash-out of Christmas celebrations. Every year the staff present their worry about not being able to meet the financial demands for a Christmas party, and every year they impress me by scrounging up resources to give the residents of Grace Christmas Mission the party they dream of. Christmas parties are easy though. A dead goat, a sponsor (many thanks once again to Media Convergence), a few rounds of Trip to Jerusalem (aka Musical Chairs), some new underwear, and 50 family members, and you have yourself a rockin’ Pinoy celebration.


"Kid McDo" at a McDonalds-hosted Christmas part


The competitors: a Jollibee-sponsored Christmas party


Another local Christmas party


Our own GCM Christmas party with our executive director


What is much more difficult for Grace Christian Mission, however, is finding the money to support its’ on-going needs. After nearly 20 years at our site in Sitio Boso Boso, the GCM home facility is in shambles. Renovations must of course take the back-burner to Christmas parties, staff salaries, and children’s school fees. What are left for repairing the gaping holes in the water/termite-damaged ceilings and for adding new tiles and paint to a nearly-completed bathroom renovation, then, are maybe a few pesos and certainly not enough to cover the over $15,000 projects.

While GCM has always struggled to meet its financial needs, things are going to actually get much more difficult. Our only international funder, Kindernothilfe (KNH) Germany, which supplies 50% of total finances, will be phasing out its support within the next few years. That means, that the basic needs provided by KNH (food, hygiene supplies, clothing, salaries) will be entirely gone.

Here is the part where I ask for help. If you or anyone you know in the US (be it aunts and cousins or connections with big-hearted corporate companies) is interested in sponsoring our organization, in short or long-term scale, please do contact me immediately. After two years and so much progress, it would be an absolute shame to see GCM close because it cannot meet financial needs. In the spirit of the holidays, I now turn to you.


Happy Holidays and a very Happy New Year to all!!