Lesotho: Care work that provides hope

I am a woman, now more than 50-years old, born in and still living in Lesotho. I discovered my interest in community work during the first two years of a six-year adult education course I attended at Maseru campus. I was one of the co-founders of an association established by Adult Education students in 1999, called Lesotho AIDS Education and Counselling Association (LAECA), encouraged and supported by Professor Batwa, a psychology lecturer at Maseru Campus. The mandate of the Association was to empower people with behaviour changing education so that they can avoid HIV infection. At that time I believed that education alone could change behaviour until the reality of other factors revealed that there is more to the prevalence of HIV in Lesotho than meets the eye. Behaviour change requires more than a personal will and determination – a person needs human and financial resources to maintain it.

The revelation came one day when I was attending a morning prayer at church. I noticed a young girl sobbing in prayer. I went to her and lay my hand on her shaking shoulders. After the prayer I asked if she wanted to talk and she declined. A week later she called me (somehow she obtained my number) and after a series of small talks, I discovered her problem. It helped me to gently steer our talk towards sexuality issues common to teenagers. That was a breakthrough.

She was nearly raped and the experience had tainted her innocence. That was the beginning of many incidents where my interaction with youth took a direction of addressing sexuality issues. There are many girls who are not prepared to deal with adolescent stages and their parents are not equipped to provide information and support because of a cultural taboo against open talk on all sexual subjects.

I have learned over the years that there is a group of girls who do not exit their teenage stage successfully because of a lack of information and skills to handle sex and sexuality in relationships. Those who have been taken advantage of silently succumb to the psychological consequences that in some cases remain the stumbling block for successful marriage. The experience enabled me to design HIV prevention that will allow open and free talk to help participants break the silence. These situations demanded that I revisit my psychology books and further seek information about the impact of sexual abuse in adulthood.

In 2008 I joined the Action Group in Sports (AGSA) and played a lead role in designing the behavioural change communication training material for an HIV Prevention Project. Experts believe that behaviour change is critical to halt the spread of HIV and it was critical that sexually active people understand this concept and apply it in their lives. Being a Christian, I had to inform the National AIDS Commission (which funded the Project) that I think being a whole person includes having a spiritual side to one’s behaviour. My view is based on the fact that all equipment has been manufactured by someone. If my car breaks down and I call the manufacturer, he will diagnose the problem and will even instruct me where and what to do. I believe that humans are created by God; and addressing human illness without Him may be a futile exercise. As a result, my approach to behavioural change is holistic – and it has worked. Humans are spiritual more than social beings. When education addresses spirituality, it positions a person to reach within and find a true picture of self. I facilitated behavioural change in various age groups including parents for guidance in parenting teenagers in the era of HIV. The training sessions are concluded with a session I call Lekunutung le Morena which requires participants to internalise and take stock of what they have done in conjunction with what they have learned pertaining to HIV prevention and/or living with HIV.

Participants are requested to write their feelings; and these have been testimonies of how desperate today’s youth are: revealing the true possible underlying reason why most have engaged in risky sexual behaviour. It is a sad truth of the well documented situation of multiple sexual partnering in Lesotho.

This is often the point at which individuals make the decision to STOP. The session shed a light of the new era of empowerment that being HIV positive is not a life sentence. It is a motivation to know one’s HIV status. It is a point of departure to take control of self; for indeed no person can change anyone but self! The tears shed in these training sessions are indeed a turning point for many young women who are trapped in undesirable sexual relationships. It allows them to make informed decisions to claim their power to maintain their HIV-free status or live positively for a long satisfying life!

This “I” Story is part of the Gender Links Opinion and Commentary Service special series on care work.