Work

It's been ages since I blogged again...unusually because I've been working pretty hard! It's quite frustrating that with only a couple of months to go I can finally see what I'm supposed to be doing, but I'm certainly not complaining to find so many staff and local volunteers busy in the office.

This last month has been hectic as World AIDS day is on 1st December and there were several events leading up to it, including a concert organised by my organization. On the day itself we marched in a parade (this seems to be how every day of significance is marked in Zambia...) with newly printed t-shirts. It's hard to work out if events like that, which require a lot of planning and considerable donor funding, actually have any impact om the epidemic. But it was good to see so many young people out for the event and a great chance for me to see what my colleagues can achieve when they're on form. We set up displays of the various awareness raising tools that we use to talk to young people about HIV, and lots of people were keen to look at them. (Although not as keen as they were to take away anything at all that we were distributing free, regardless of it's relevance..)

I'm doing my best to take advantage of everyone's enthusiasm and we're busy completing various funding applications to start new projects. My colleagues are very capable so mostly they're completing the applications and I'm considering how best to put together template proposals and answers to make their fundraising easier in the future. I've also started a monthly e-newsletter, which I won't inflict on family and friends, but if anyone would like to be added to our mailing list please do let me know. It'd be good to be able to show that I am actually achieving something professionally in between all the fun!