I frequently travel back and forth from Kigali to Gisenyi - Gisenyi is a beautiful city (I use the term 'city' loosely) on Lake Kivu in the Western part of Rwanda, about 2-3 hours away from Kigali. It is incredibly serene and a popular place for Rwandans to vacation. I've mentioned to people that I often go to Gisenyi for work, which made me realize that people might not actually know what my work is. This is definitely my fault since I haven't done a great job of explaining my project. I'm sure everyone is aware that I work in public health, but that can mean a lot of different things. So I thought I would take this moment to better explain my projects for those of you who are interested.
To start out, I work at an NGO that is based out of Columbia University called the International Center for AIDS Care and Treatment Programs (ICAP) - the organization works in a bunch of different countries around Africa and some parts of Asia. Although the organization clearly specializes in HIV/AIDS work, my work is focused on ICAP's new initiatives. As many of us public health folks know, HIV/AIDS funding is going to decrease so organizations are diversifying their scope of work. ICAP is following this trend therefore my primary project is not exactly HIV focused. I'm working on a scale-up of "one stop centers" for survivors of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV). These one-stop centers are based within district hospitals and staff a psychologist, physician, nurse, social worker, judicial police officer, and legal advocate. This model is used so that when a rape or domestic violence survivor arrives at the hospital, he/she can go to the center and receive all the medical, psychosocial, and legal services needed in one central location.
This model is based off the reputable Isange one stop center in Kigali and is being replicated around the country. ICAP is responsible for its replication in Gisenyi so we are in the process of renovating the hospital facilities, conducting community sensitization campaigns, hiring new staff, and training current hospital staff on SGBV.
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| Activity with health care providers during SGBV training - pretty easy to understand even if you can't read French |
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| Eugenie presenting the differences between sex and gender during a SGBV sensitization training |
Over the next 4 months I'll also be working on two addition projects, both of which are not yet completely developed (but hopefully will be soon). For the first project I will be assessing the prevalence of SGBV in HIV discordant couples. In other words, I'll be looking at the rates of sexual and domestic violence between couples where one person has HIV and the other doesn't.
The second project I'm very excited to be working on is ICAP's men who have sex with men (MSM) project. This high-profile project is especially interesting because I'll be working on the community outreach part of the program in an effort to get MSM coming to health facilities. Homosexuality is not generally accepted by Rwandans - MANY of the people I've discussed this issue with view it as a Western concept. Neighboring countries have gone as far as to criminalize homosexuality; however Rwanda has neither criminalized nor decriminalized it so the government's stance is slightly ambiguous. For these reasons, reaching the MSM community is going to present many challenges. I'm really interested to see how much progress we can make and will definitely write more about this project as it develops.
So now you know my 8am - 5pm from Monday to Friday life!
