Project Details

I received the details of the project I will be volunteering with. I will primarily be providing counseling to women who have been infected with HIV. All of the counseling is done in-home, in the areas surrounding the city of Arusha. I am told the program primarily deals with self-esteem building, coping with the illness, and health and prevention. Not exactly my area of expertise, but I'm looking forward to challenging myself. The main reason I wanted to do this trip was to get some first-hand experience in social justice work around an important problem. Looks like I have that covered. One aspect of this work that is in my area of expertise is that they also try to destigmatize HIV in the local communities. Not that I have hands-on experience with that kind of activism, but I wrote my Master's thesis on the topic of stigma.

I was initially worried I wouldn't be able to do much counseling because of the cultural and language barriers, but it shouldn't be a problem. English is the second most common language in Tanzania (after Swahili). So, I am told I might be able to work in English with women who are proficient, and that I will work with another counselor who is fluent in Swahili the rest of the time.