A day in the life of treatment support workers and treatment mobilisers
Ruth Siabwacha, Lusaka
"I wake up at 5am for a bath and I always remember to say my morning prayer to God. I prepare breakfast if it is available and share it with my children. Then I start off for the Ngombe community at 6am. I stand at the public bus stop, waiting for the bus, and connect twice to reach Ngombe between 8am and 8.30am for community activities. I go through the diary for the day in the early morning and recheck on arrival at the site centre called the Residential Development Committee offices where I will meet the implementing partners for activities there. Then I will go with the partners to the site for the activity; e.g. community mobilisation by drama. My role is as a resource person, giving information on HIV/AIDS ARV [anti-retroviral] adherence and referrals, and co-ordinating the activity. After the morning activity I go to the IEC [information, education and communication] stand in the market for supervision and as a resource person, or I go to the drop-in centre. This is still not suitable for activities because it is undergoing renovations, but because there is no other venue for community sensitisation meetings we have to use it.
As a person who is both infected with and affected by HIV/AIDS, I share my experiences with the community and give information on HIV/AIDS transmission, prevention and management of ARV side effects during sensitisation sessions, community meetings, HIV/AIDS workshops and initiation ceremonies. I am a member of an ARV support group and because I am a registered nurse and midwife I am well placed to give information on the PMTCT [prevention of mother-to-child transmission] programme and co-ordinate ARV information activities well using a work plan. I need to avoid burn-out because I co-ordinate activities for four partners. My job has boosted my CV and I am very well motivated by my employers; e.g. free medication. As a result, I put a lot of effort into the ACER project – so much so that results are coming in to show that 100 people living with HIV/AIDS in the community accessed ARV within three months from January to March 2005 and formed two ARV support groups in the community."
