Settling In - July 30th

Life in Meheba the past few weeks has been great. Sherie and Sabah left at the end of July and since then Jeremy and I have been running at full speed. While things are busy, they are also amazing. My first official week as Project Manager once the old PM’s left was spent working on a camp-wide Teen Pregnancy awareness campaign with UNHCR. I went with our FORGE health workers from RHS and FHS as well as three community health workers from MCDSS. Our group organized dramas, poetry, songs, and lectures on HIV/AIDS, teenage pregnancy, and abortion, all things that have been on the rise in recent months in the camp. We canvassed one Block a day and visited schools in the mornings and gathered community members in the afternoon.

I had an “I love my job” moment when I was sitting under the trees in the community one afternoon. We had gone through the area calling people to come to the program and inviting them to join us under some shade trees. A group had gathered and our team began doing a drama on early marriage and the importance of schooling and waiting for marriage for girls. After the drama, Mary, an FHS worker, sat down and began lecturing on HIV/AIDS and began a discussion with the community. All of this was being done in their native tongue by a fellow refugee. As people asked serious questions and engaged in debate and discussion, it hit me that this is where change happens. Sitting under the shade trees in rural Africa, these people were acquiring fundamental and vital information about problems affecting their families and neighbors, from one of their neighbors. I love my job.