Upon our departure we donated another 200 testing kits to the local government clinic that have staff trained in VCT but had only two kits left and as of October 2nd a further 87 went for testing. The whole of the pilot was professionally filmed, its reactions and responses. A copy of the DVD is available by request.

The principal purpose of the pilot project was to physically evaluate the effectiveness of the Charity’s objectives and methods of implementation. We now have our first field operative in Evans Graph, he has the first donated laptop and has started his own sensitisation programme. He is connected to the Internet and sends us weekly reports.

Thus we have already helped someone to help others. We also became aware of the need for other topics to be addressed such as traditional healers and their habit of using one razor blade to cut the skin of twenty different people in one day, thus leading to cross infection.

The fact that we were able to reach so many people in such a short time shows the scope for the advancement of the project. The fact that these people could understand what was being shown being in their native language had great impact.

Evaluation
We carried out a questionnaire that was delivered to 80 people made up of 29 mainly yes no responses. The questions covered areas of previous knowledge, attitudes to the disease, current practices, behaviour and culture. These were disseminated on a one to one basis by the counsellors. We also carried out another form of questionnaire which involved small groups being given colour coded gender specific cards small enough to fit into the palm of their hands so other people could not see their replies. Questions were asked by the counsellors in Nyanja with tick for yes X for no answers. They were then collected into specifically numbered bags after the answering of each question. The people who carried out this form of survey found it fun, much laughing and amusement was had. It also allowed us to get basic answers from quite a large number of people relatively quickly.

This has allowed rapid evaluation of the project’s effectiveness and the beginning of a data-set that will be useful to researchers, governmental and civil organisations.

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