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News from around VSO > Guinea-Bissau success stories

(12 October 2005)

VSO is reluctantly closing its programme in Guinea-Bissau in June 2006. One of the key factors in this is the great difficulty for volunteers and partner organisations to work effectively where local resources are so limited.

However, staff and volunteers are working hard to ensure the impact of VSO's work will be sustainable after the programme closes in June 2006 - here are three stories, illustrating how this has been happening.

VSO sets up Guinea-Bissau's first HIV & AIDS resource centre – can you help provide materials?

As part of VSO’s strategy to deal with the challenges of HIV and AIDS in Guinea-Bissau they have built the country’s first HIV and AIDS resource centre. They now need additional materials in Portuguese.

The World Bank classifies Guinea-Bissau as undergoing a 'generalized' HIV & AIDS epidemic. In January 2005, the Ministry of Health estimated that out of a population of 1.3 million, 43,000 were HIV-positive (IRIN). Population Services International surveys in 2003 showed a worrying lack of knowledge and understanding of HIV & AIDS (even among doctors). In these conditions HIV & AIDS prevalence has increased, constraining wider development efforts.

In response, VSO volunteer Lynne Walder, a communications specialist, helped VSO Guinea-Bissau develop and start implementing an HIV & AIDS strategy. All VSO volunteers were trained to examine the impact of HIV & AIDS in their placements and communities and almost all have helped their partner organisations incorporate HIV & AIDS awareness into their work.

With funding from the British Embassy in Senegal, VSO's HIV & AIDS Resource Centre was fitted by a team of carpentry teachers and students from CENFI (Centre for Industrial Training) including VSO volunteer Simon Potts . The centre has helped VSO partners to promote HIV & AIDS awareness with their staff and communities by providing regular workshops and otherwise hard-to-find materials in Portuguese.

Lynne reflects:

In a country where there are so many problems and so much poverty it is difficult to expect people to take on HIV & AIDS issues when merely surviving can be so difficult. But our staff, volunteers, partners and communities are wholeheartedly listening, understanding and wanting to do something to help stop the spread of HIV & AIDS.

If you have any suitable materials to offer the resource centre, especially in Portuguese, please contact mamadu.balde@vsoint.org.

Helping Guinean colleagues learn about HIV & AIDS

Simon Potts was a carpentry instructor at CENFI (Centre for Industrial Training) – working in the challenging environment of a bombed-out cinema, CENFI’s temporary home after their original premises were completely destroyed in the civil war. Simon managed to resuscitate the CENFI carpentry course and raise funds to improve facilities, enabling CENFI to compete within the local construction market, thereby bringing in further much needed funds.

However, for Simon, the most meaningful work was helping his colleagues at CENFI learn more about HIV & AIDS. Simon initially found that one semi-obscured poster was CENFI’s only means of raising awareness of HIV & AIDS to members of staff or students. Simon then helped CENFI win the contract to work with VSO to fit out their HIV & AIDS resource centre.

Apart from being an opportunity to work alongside the carpenter teachers on a project sharing skills and improving methods, Simon was able to raise the topic of HIV & AIDS with the director of the CENFI programme which resulted in a number of seminars involving teachers and students, highlighting the importance of awareness, prevention and combating stigma. As Simon says of working with CENFI on the VSO HIV & AIDS resource centre:

From the empty space to the seminars, helping people to fill in the gaps is what volunteering is all about.

Government award for volunteer whose work went well beyond his placement

Bert Schalkwijk's experience shows how volunteering use international links to bring in valuable funds for work linked to the placement – recognised with a Guinea-Bissau government award.

To complement the progress he was making in his placement as an in-service teacher trainer for maths and sciences (part of VSO Guinea-Bissau’s Education strategy) Bert decided to raise funds for the schools and communities with whom he was working. He set up links with many different parts of his home community in the Netherlands and gathered in total about €60,000 to finance a range of projects.

These included the construction of two fully-equipped classrooms at a school in Farim (which could then ease teacher workload by moving from three to two shifts a day) as well as two classrooms for scientific experiments (including specialist equipment) in Mansoa. Ana Teresa Forjaz, programme manager with VSO Guinea-Bissau adds

Bert helped a lot of local people to organise their lives, through moral support and lending money to start a business. For example, he helped women in Mansoa to start a bakery and supported carpenters to start a factory. He also helped a village primary school in Cussana to reconstruct their two classrooms so local children can go to school in their own village.

For his range of contributions to development efforts in Guinea-Bissau, Bert received a Diploma de Mérito – an 'Award of Merit' from the Guinean Ministry of Education and furthermore, as Bert says

we built a vast ground for a relationship between the Netherlands and Guinea-Bissau.

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