First Week At TASO

This was my first week working at TASO. So far it has been great. Everyone has been extremely welcoming. It seems that I am going to be working on surveys for the Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission of HIV/AIDS. We will be conducting client exit interviews where we will ask the clients whether they were happy with the program, what could be improved, if they understood the need for the treatments/counseling, how they felt they were treated by staff etc. We will also be creating KAP surveys that will be given to staff of TASO involved in the PMTCT program. The surveys will ask questions to make sure they understand what they are teaching, how they treat clients, what they believe needs to be improved etc. I think it will be very beneficial to TASO because the PMTCT program was just implemented this year and they would like to increase capacity and make sure it is a successful as possible.
I met one of the clients on the first day here. I was sitting at my computer in my office and had this strange feeling I was being watched. I looked around and I saw too young boys. One was at each window staring in at us. The windows were open and we don’t have screens….just decorative security bars to prevent people from breaking in. Both boys had their chins resting on the windowsills and they were quietly watching us. Eventually one of the boys ended up standing outside of our doorway so we invited him in. He was shy but seemed quite interested in meeting us. We introduced ourselves and started talking to him. I will leave his name out of this blog to keep anonymity. He told us he was at TASO to receive his medicine. He had just been put on ARV’s a few months ago. He was waiting around because his mother was getting her medicines and then was working with TASO to get his school fees straight so that she could enroll him in school. TASO has a program where they take donations to pay for the school fees of orphaned and vulnerable children. He told us that he was an artist and quickly asked me if he could play on my computer. I wasn’t busy at the time so I obliged. He drew me a very accurate picture of Uganda on my Paint program. He even drew the lakes to great accuracy and told me the names of each one. He is quite a bright boy and very sweet. Next we gave him paper and pencil so he could draw a picture of Ryna (another volunteer). Though we found, that since he is an artist, he prefers to use his own pencil that he keeps handy in his pocket. He did a great job and in the middle of his drawing his mom came in. She is pregnant and is HIV positive along with her husband and son. She is in the PMTCT program in hopes of delivering a healthy HIV negative baby. She was very excited to see that he had found us. Apparently he had made friends with the previous fellows as well. The boy stretched his drawing out for as long as possible because he did not want to leave. Eventually we coaxed him to leave with his mom and assured him that he could come back to see us when he came back to TASO. After he left we asked about his family and his story. We found out that along with him, his mom, dad and all his siblings were HIV+. His siblings had died along with other family members from AIDS. His mom disclosed her HIV status to the community to explain the deaths of her other children. The community then stigmatized her; her husband left and nobody would play with her one surviving son They have since relocated to another village. After finding out she was pregnant she started in the PMTCT program and is genuinely happy about the chance of having another child. I cannot even fathom what this family has been through and how they have managed to get through it all. Yet, they seem to be happy and are moving ahead with their lives and thinking positively about their future.
This story is all too common where I currently reside. The ARV treatments have made families healthy. Many women who were once extremely ill are now quite healthy and living very normal lives. Because of this, some have chosen to have children. That is the reason why the PMTCT program is so important. There is approximately a 25-45% chance that a baby from a positive mother will be become HIV+ without the program. The PMTCT program helps prevent HIV incidence from increasing in the next generation.