“Haraka, Haraka Haina Baraka” – “Quickly, Quickly Brings No Blessings”- VP1

When I last sat cross-legged, clutching my battered notebook and half lost in the swirling dust kicked up along the sidelines of a Tanzanian soccer field, I knew two distinct truths: If the opportunity to return with SIC were presented, I would not hesitate in accepting… that, and the work which VP1 had started during the summer of 2013 was unfinished. Looking up, I remember seeing the shapes of my fellow volunteers moving among the crowd and between the tents which SIC had erected, leading rural farmers, soccer players and village elders by the hand to receive free HIV/AIDS tests. “This is how change is brought about” I remember thinking to myself; each volunteer flying halfway around the world from institutions of higher learning, in order to engage and teach among the underserved populations of East Africa. For this brief period, a mere two months,  we were inserted into vulnerable communities to prevent the continued spread of HIV, to educate at every level of society…but as I sat like a stone, with the fluid river of humanity flowing around me, it struck me that we, the volunteers, were the real students. Now, a full year later, I look around and myself once again in a rural village, to the west of Mt. Kilimanjaro and hidden among the hills of Kikatiti. Reflecting on the past twelve months, my return to Tanzania was like the light at the end of a long, winding tunnel; I’d started a Support for International Change club at my university, recruited new, passio...
Source: Support for International Change : HIV AIDS - Category: Global & Universal Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: news