These teachers all facilitate Window of Hope clubs at their schools.
Here they are presenting one of the songs from the WIndow of Hope
program to the rest of a group of teachers gathered for a refresher
course.
The week after visiting Hoachanas schools I helped put on a refresher
course for the Window of Hope teachers. Window of Hope is an
excellent, holistic, after-school, HIV & AIDS education program that
was developed by UNICEF for grades 4-7 in Namibia. The program uses
songs, games, stories, art, drama, and discussion to teach kids about
self-esteem, goal setting, their own changing bodies, and many of the
issues around HIV & AIDS such as transmission, stigmatization,
prevention, and positive living. It is supposed to be in all primary
schools in the country. I cannot speak for the rest of the country,
but in Hardap Region that is true. All 47 primary schools have this
program up and running. This year we (WOH Trainers and RACE
Coordinator) brought all of the facilitators for Junior and Senior
WOH clubs together to discuss the successes and challenges of
facilitating the clubs, to answer their questions that came up along
the way, and to plan for the future of the program in their specific
clusters (groups of schools in one town or area/village). The formal
training of facilitator for Window of Hope is one week. This
refresher was one day, so we had to be pretty efficient with our
content and use of time. Overall, the feedback from the teachers was
really positive. They seemed to enjoy the opportunity to discuss
challenges, come up with solutions, and share ideas with teachers
from different schools and different towns. Hopefully this refresher
course will help to not only continue Window of Hope, but improve its
implementation in our region.
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