Some Answers

How will you deal with a situation in which a child doesn't want to stay at the orphanage because they were used to being on their own?

This is something we have taken into consideration upon picking and choosing (as politically incorrect as it sounds, every center like ours needs some sort of criteria) kids to stay at our orphanage. OHS has been talking with some street children our volunteers have met during the summer and asked that they meet at a certain place and time every week. The ones that come are given some food and are a little bit closer to having a home. The ones that are consistent show us a desire to have a home and a family. We do this because we are not there to tell them what is right, only provide a good, solid option for living. If they do not want to be at an orphanage, we certainly won't make them.

How will you react to resistance when you teach community education workshops that challenges the "traditional" way things are done? For example, sex education or contraceptive use? 

I expect that a lot of the resistance will not all that apparent to us volunteers. Why? These community workshops are completely voluntary on their part. Those who attend want to hear what we have to say, maybe knowing that it challenges their current knowledge of HIV/AIDS. In terms of their "traditional" way things are done, our workshops hope to cater to those traditional ways by only allowing males to give condom demonstrations to males and having females speak with expecting mothers about preventing HIV transmission to their newborns. Contraceptive use is not unheared of nor uncommon in Tanzania. They have their own national brand of condoms called Salama and its usage is very popular. What does challenge the traditional way is that condom usage is solely the responsibility of the male. It is not proper for wives to ask their husbands to use condoms because it suggests promiscuous behavior and infidelity (men are allowed to have multiple wives, but not vice versa). To cater to this, we have tailored our curriculum to encourage males to use condoms and expose women to the benefits of condoms while encouraging them to use female condom (aka diaphragm) to protect themselves.

Great questions, Sue! Thanks for asking. As for Anonymous, we will post the responses to your questions soon! Feel free to ask more questions.