HIV training sessions

Once we had finished up our marketing and ISAL sessions, we were able to start working on our focus for the second half of the cycle, HIV/AIDS and gender sessions.

As Caritas, the partner organisation we are working with, is part of the Catholic church we are restricted on the HIV issues we can run sessions on given their stance on the use of condoms. So it was decided that we would focus on HIV nutrition. This topic allowed us to provide training sessions for all the beneficiaries on nutrition while also focussing on the issues that are particular to people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV).

This was a really interesting topic for us as the majority of the volunteers had little to no knowledge on HIV/AIDS work, and even less on why nutrition is so important for those living with HIV. Because we had limited time left in our placement we weren’t able to identify groups of people within the farm living with HIV, and so we decided to run the session as a general nutrition session, but with some specific information relevant to caring for people living with HIV or for people living with HIV. It was an interesting session from a cultural exchange perspective as well as we couldn’t just use the food pyramids the UK volunteers were familiar with as they didn’t include traditional Zimbabwean foods. We spoke to the National Aids Council in Zimbabwe and we were able to get access to some specific resources they had on nutrition for people living with HIV in Zimbabwe. It was really interesting as the staple food Sadza obviously has a key role to play, but there were some sources of protein that were less familiar to the UK volunteers such as insects, which we didn’t fancy adding to our Zimbabwean diet!!

The session went down really well with the beneficiaries who were really interested in the general nutrition issues we covered as well as the HIV specific ones. They asked a lot of really insightful questions, most of which we were able to answer from our research and they have asked us to run more similar sessions for them.

It was unfortunate that due to a lack of water availability and the movement of our debrief event forward we were unable to run a second HIV specific session. However, we were able to put together a community event to raise awareness of HIV and to discuss issues including stigma and transmission.

Community sports day

It took us a little bit of time to work out the bureaucracy and clearance processes we needed to go through in order to organise a community event, but we eventually worked it out and scheduled two in for weeks 7 and 9.

Our first community event had the aim of bringing the community together. One of the things we had identified in our initial survey at the start of our placement was that a number of the beneficiaries didn’t know each other and the majority didn’t work together in farming their plots. We hoped that a fun community event would bring everyone together and get them talking.

Our community liaison team worked really hard to plan and organise a community sports day which we were going to hold on a flat bit of ground just outside the boundary of Kentucky farm. Unfortunately before we could run the sports day we had to clear this flat piece of ground. It was a bit of a hard slog for the volunteers but with a great deal of energy and enthusiasm they managed to clear the ground and roughly mark out our race track for the day.

The community liaison team had identified that they wanted to have a cultural exchange as part of the day and so they wanted to have a British picnic. As we were lacking in scones, cream and jam they opted for pasta salad and egg sandwiches. We were aiming to have all 216 beneficiaries attending and so we had to cook enough for everyone. This proved to be slightly challenging when we only had 2 saucepans and 2 hobs! But we eventually managed to get the pasta and the eggs boiled and thousands of sandwiches made.

We ran races for the beneficiaries including sack races, sprint, three legged race and the tug of war. It was great fun, and all the beneficiaries were smiling throughout the day. They even seemed to enjoy our “British picnic”! All in all a very successful day.

ISALS Monitoring and Evaluation

Once we had made it past mid term we knew we only had 5 week left on placement and so everything kicked up another gear!

The ISAL team finished their final ISAL training session which went down really well and the marketing team started on their set of three training sessions. While the marketing guys were planning and delivering their sessions there was still plenty of work the ISAL team needed to do. ICS is meant to promote sustainable development and to that end we have a team plan that we work to, that is part of a broader overall project plan that will cover the work of a number of cycles of volunteers. Within that project plan there are a number of short term, medium term and long term outcomes that our work is supposed to feed into.

This means, that as we did our initial survey on ISALS at the beginning of our training sessions to measure the level of knowledge within the beneficiaries we also have to do monitoring and evaluation throughout the placement to see how much the beneficiaries are benefitting from the work we are doing.

For each individual training session we had to prepare a plan before we ran the session. We ran each session 3 times to reach all our beneficiairies and after each session we would do some informal feedback getting the beneficiaries to give us a thumbs up or thumbs down for how each session had gone. As you might imagine they were very polite and usually gave us thumbs up!

However as we finished our sessions we had to prepare more formal M&E, and so we decided to do another survey of all the beneficiaries to gauge their knowledge. We were quick to point out to our interviewees that this was definitely not a test of their knowledge on ISALS but rather an opportunity for us to determine what further training was needed. We were very pleased to discover that overall the knowledge had definitely gone up among those who had attended the sessions, but there was still plenty for the next cycle to do!

Visit to Vumba

After our mid term review on Thursday we headed into a 5 day weekend, which gave us a great opportunity to get out and about. 

 Friday and Saturday were spent in Mutare, and one of our ICVS kindly took some of us fabric shopping and to her relative who is a tailor. We found lots of amazing material in great patterns and we have ordered lots of skirts, dresses and shirts made, so we may be coming home with a whole new wardrobe! Here is a photoof my first Zimbabwean outfit!

18 of us headed off to Vumba in the Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe, on Sunday which is about 30km from Mutasa. We spent Sunday relaxing at Leopard rock Hotel, a 4* hotel which has a small game park, horse riding, walks, and lovely grounds. We headed straight off for game viewing and were lucky enough to see zebras, Kudu, antelope, ostriches and monkeys. Unfortunately we didn’t see the giraffes, but the park was absolutely beautiful and we really enjoyed our tour around.

Once we had enjoyed the facilities and seen our fill of the animals we headed to our accommodation for the evening. We were staying in a lodge nestled in the hills, which was beautiful, remote and completely cut off from the outside world – no wifi or mobile signal. I was lucky enough to be up in a cabin on the hill above the main building and had a beautiful view.

We had an amazing dinner, where we had more veggies than we had seen in the previous month, and we all ate until we thought we might burst! Given the remote location we had an amazing view of the stars and the milky way and we spent the evening around the fire outside singing songs and just enjoying the great outdoors.

Monday morning was a lazy affair, allowing us to lie in and relax in the gardens. We decided to do one of the walks offered by the lodge to a waterfall having been told it was only about 30 minutes away. What they forgot to tell us was that it was 4km down hill to reach the waterfall, and the only way back was to climb 4km back up the hill. The waterfall was lovely, but the walk back up the hill was painful and by the time we arrived back at the lodge I was happy just to lie in the sun and read my book for the rest of the afternoon!

We stopped at a lovely view point on the outskirts of Mutare called Prince of Wales view point, where you can see across the border into Mozambique, and where local craftspeople sell stone carvings. A lot of us managed to get our souvenir shopping started!!

Mutasa and Mid term review

Following our first two successful ISAL training sessions and starting the research for our marketing reports, we decided to visit our friends in Mutasa. The DOMCCP team are working about 30km from Mutare in Mutasa at a boarding school called St Matthias. Mutasa is a beautiful area, surrounded by hills and we were made to feel very welcome.

It was great to see our friends and they gave us a tour of the school and where they were all staying. Once we had seen that they took us to their hang out spot, a place with a beautiful view called Edwardes, where a previous resident had built numerous towers, which gave a great view of the surrounding area. Once we had soaked up enough sunshine and beautiful views it was off to the Headmasters house for a Brai (or barbecue). A particular highlight was the little puppy who lived there, who was very adorable! It was so lovely to hang out, eat great food and have a bit of a boogie through the afternoon.

Once we were back from Mutasa it was straight back into a busy week running up to mid-term review. We managed to squeeze in two more ISAL sessions at Kentucky, and finalise our marketing reports all in the three days before mid-term review. We also spent some time working on our mid-term report and our presentation.

We arrived at St Josephs, where we had our orientation, on Wednesday evening, ready for 2 nights of catching up and having fun. Thursday morning was a really uplifting morning as each team presented their achievements for the first half of the placement and the challenges we had faced. We had plenty of achievements to talk about, our ISAL sessions, our marketing reports and our plans for the rest of the placement. We also had plenty of challenges to talk about due to us being the first ICS team working with Caritas, but we hope that we have managed to identify the best ways to deal with the challenges we are facing.

Daily commute

For me, getting to work involves travelling on the minibuses which take the school children to St Dominic’s, the school where we work. If I am up and at the “bus stop” before 7.15am I have a straight 10-15 minute journey to school. If I go after 7.15 am I miss the school Kombis, and I have to take a Kombi into the town center, and then walk 40 minutes up the hill to the school.

The school Kombis are very entertaining, all Kombis require 4 people to sit to a 3 person bench seats, and play music at full volume as you travel. But school Kombis inevitably try and squeeze as many children into the Kombi as possible, meaning they stand up in the space between seats, sit on knees and otherwise fill every available space! There are also often school projects being carried by very brave children, as there is always the risk that a stray elbow will demolish carefully constructed papier mache!

On any Kombi you travel in, it can be tricky to squeeze your way off the bus at the right time, but luckily there are big windows which you can pass your baby/parcel through to anyone who is passing while you try and negotiate off the bus. One morning last week while I was travelling on the school Kombi a couple of primary school children were squeezed in the back and needed to get off. As everyone was trying to make space for them to get off, the conductor identified a better option, and lifted the two children out the rear window!

The journey home is a little more tricky, as the school Kombis leave at 3.30pm, when school ends, and we don’t finish work until 4.30! So I have to walk 30-40 minutes down the hills, and then get the Kombi. The tricky part of getting the Kombi home is that it drops people wherever they ask, and so the route can be a bit convoluted. It is difficult to know if you are getting in a Kombi which will take me directly home in 10 minutes, or one which will take 20-25 minutes as it tours the town. If I am unlucky the Kombi going home will just have left when I get to the Kombi stop, and so I will have to wait until the next one fills up, which takes anything from 10 minutes to 45!

The novelty hasn’t quite worn off yet, so the Kombi rides still provide me with a lot of entertainment. Once the schools break up for holidays on 6^th August, it may be less fun as I have to walk up the hill every day!

Starting our activities at Kentucky

Having completed our surveys last week, and gotten to know Kentucky farm and the beneficiaries it was time to start our activities. The group was split into two, one team working on market research into both formal and informal markets so they could prepare two reports, and one team preparing and delivering training sessions on internal savings and lending schemes (ISAL).

I was leading the ISAL team, and our plan was deliver 2 training sessions per week for the next two weeks. One of the Caritas staff members delivered a presentation on ISALs during our orientation, which was extremely useful, and so we started work on our presentations.

At Kentucky there are between 185-215 beneficiaries who work the plots, and only a small shed in which we could carry out our training sessions. We therefore split the beneficiaries into 3 groups and ran each training session 3 times in a day, back to back.

The first two sessions on individual self screening and group formation went really well. We had over 100 attendees for our first session, and 75 for the second. In the second session we ran an activity about electing group position holders, such as the leader, treasurer etc, where the beneficiaries had to role play in their groups a good election and a bad election. The role plays were fantastic, there was clapping, singing, dancing, as well as some fantastic acting, including a full faint by one of the participants! We had so much fun with the beneficiaries working through the first two sessions, we cannot wait to return next week and run the next few sessions.

 Team of presenters on day one:

A Baboon listening carefully to the ISAL training!

Training team day 2:

In between delivering activities, as a team leader I still have lots of other responsibilities. These include carrying out team meetings, running our CMI training sessions, meeting with Caritas, discussing the budget and making sure those who are unwell are ok. It certainly keeps us busy!! And next week we have our mid term review, where we report back to Progressio about the achievements we have made and the challenges we have faced, so Friday was spent starting to think about what we would cover in our presentation. 

Milkshakes and Climbing Marymount hill

Unfortunately due to unforeseen circumstances I had to undertake a rather urgent run to Harare to get a visa extension, as my entry visa only lasted 30 days, and my long term visa had not yet been processed. Luckily it wasn’t just me in this position, it was all 3 UK team leaders, so we all could travel together. We made the journey down on the 4.15am bus (painfully early!) and arrived with about 2 hours to spare to get our visas sorted! As we needed to be around to sign any last minute papers we got a night in Harare before heading back to Mutare on Saturday morning. The small advantage to being in Harare was that we stayed at the Small World Hostel we had stayed at on arrival and so we had hot water, wifi and I was able to make myself a bacon sandwich in the morning!

We arrived back in Mutare on Saturday just before lunch, as we had a very speedy bus driver who managed the whole journey in 3 hours!! This gave us enough time to grab lunch and to try out the milkshake place at Meikles restaurant, which was highly recommended by the previous volunteers. They did delicious milkshakes – definitely a good find on a dry programme!

We then headed to the Mutare sports grounds to watch the weekly Rugby match. This week it was Mutare v Harare. Unfortunately for Mutare, the Harare side had 10 national players on their team, and Mutare only had 1, so it was a bit of a one sided match, but it was good craic nonetheless to sit and watch the game in the beautiful sunshine!

On Sunday we decided to be a bit more active and therefore we thought we would attempt one of the smaller hills around Mutare, Marymount hill. Lots of comments were made at the bottom about how easy a hill it looked and how little time it would take to get to the top. One group decided to go straight up, while I joined the other group taking the slightly easier route around the hill.

We quickly discovered that this was not going to be as easy a climb as some had thought as the paths were overgrown with brambles, the hill was steep and the paths were not well defined! However, the views as we climbed the hill were amazing, and as we were so close to the border, we could see over into Mozambique. It was a great relief to reach the top of the hill and to rest on the large stones beneath the cross, even if some of us who were less enamoured with heights found it to be a bit high!

It was a great way to spend a relaxing Sunday afternoon, even if I do still have the scratches all over my arms and legs to prove the challenges we overcame!!

Trucks travelling the road from the border to Mutare:

At the top!

Getting down wasn't quite so easy!

Surveying Kentucky

Our second week of placement was when the real work began. We split the team in two, with Kamo taking 2/3 of the team to do the market research which will be the basis of the market reports we have been asked to produce, and me taking 1/3 of the team to prepare the trainings on ISALs (internal savings and loans).

As we are the first ICS team to work with Caritas and to work at Kentucky, our first step was to prepare some questionnaires to get an understanding of the community. We asked questions relating to personal information, finances, their plots, what they grow, how much they earn and how much they save. It was a really time intensive task, as we were aiming to survey at least 50% of the 216 beneficiaries at Kentucky.

On Tuesday 18 of us headed off in a Kombi for our first day of surveying! We split into pairs and set off to the corners of the farm to interview as many beneficiaries as we could. It was difficult at times as we were often translating from English to Shona and back again, but it was absolutely fantastic to get the chance to actually speak to the farmers and understand a bit about their lives. What amazed me the most were the women who would walk 1.5 hours to get to the farm for 8am, work carrying water, digging beds and picking vegetables until 4pm, walk 1.6 hours home and then prepare dinner for their families when they got back. And they would do this 3-4 times per week, and due to previous issues at Kentucky, they were earning very little from doing so, as it takes 3 months for the crops to grow.

Some of the longer term residents who had previously had good seasons growing their crops talked about how they had spent their earnings. For most it was to support their relatives, for example paying school fees or transport for children to get to school, or covering medical costs. For those who were just starting, they were so pleased to tell us that they had just sold some vegetables for 1 dollar the night before which had allowed them to buy meat or sugar to supplement their daily sadza portion.

Doing the interviews and questionnaires really brought home how important the work that we will be doing is, and how much need there is for this kind of project. This is not the kind of project where we come in and give handouts, we will be helping the beneficiaries to build sustainable livelihoods so they can work to support their families. These skills will last so much longer than any short term gain money could bring.

At the end of the week we had interviewed over 120 beneficiaries, which will hopefully give us lots of useful information on which we can base our training sessions in the next 7 weeks, and for us to measure our impact against. 

The Flea Market, Elephants and Nandos!

As a reward for all our hard work, we spent the weekend exploring more of Mutare including meeting up with the volunteers from Simukai and DOMCCP and visiting the Flea Market, where second hand clothes which have generally been driven in from Mozambique (where they are much cheaper) and sold on stalls in the market. The set-up of the stalls ranged widely from well-presented clothes on hangers or mannequins to unwieldy piles of clothes which looked like they might topple over at any minute. In order to find anything you have to almost dive into the piles of clothes and dig to unearth the gems. You then have to negotiate your price with the seller, which is helped a lot if you have a Zimbabwean friend with you to negotiate in Shona!

Once we had shopped our fill at the flea market, it was off to treat ourselves to Nandos – a well deserved break from Sadza and Kouvo, before hitting up the internet café for some wifi.

Sunday was spent at church and then a group of us headed up to Cecil Kop national park, which is a small national park of around 245 hectares which is home to 2 elephants, a crocodile, a giraffe and a few zebra, and it is only 10 minutes walk from our work place. A few other friends had been there the previous weekend and had only seen the crocodile, but no other animals. We were heading up in the hope of seeing the view, and to our amazement when we climbed the steps to the lake the elephants were down at the edge of the lake! We spent ages just watching them relax by the lake, and then the gamekeeper came out and told us it was feeding time, so he brought the elephants up to the feeding spot, which was right beside the fence. We were able to get right up close and watch the elephants enjoying their dinner. It was a really amazing experience, and it has whetted the appetites of the volunteers to visit a bigger game park, to see what other animals we can find.

Partner orientation and planning

Once we had finished Progressio Zimbabwe orientation, we moved into Caritas Mutare orientation.

We had 2 days learning about the history and background of Caritas Mutare and why they were set up. We also had the opportunity to go and visit Kentucky farm, which is where the beneficiaries for our project are based. In order to fully understand the project we walked the length of the pipe line, which runs 4km from the borehole to the farm. It was a lovely walk, but it really brought to light the distance that the beneficiaries have to walk each day, each direction just to get to the farm.

Once we had seen and understood the project a bit more we were really keen to get started and we dove straight in to our project planning. We worked through the project plan, identifying the areas where we felt that we could contribute the most, and set ourselves realistic targets that we could meet in the 8 weeks we would have to work on the project. Once we had done this it was down to the nitty gritty planning.

We are lucky enough to be the cycle who are testing out a new qualification for ICS Progressio, the Chartered Management Institute qualification in professional consultancy. The session on the second week was about planning and Gantt charts, and these were so useful that we used them to plan out our activities on a day by day basis for the 8 weeks. There was a lot of discussion, and a lot of multi coloured post-it notes!!It took a lot of hard work, but by the end of week one we had successfully set out a plan for our next 8 weeks and we were ready to get into the practical work in week 2!