AIDS and Coastal Namibia

A month or so ago, the government released a sobering report that put the HIV+ infection rate for women in the Erongo region, between the ages of 20-24, at 83%. 75% of men in the same age group are positive. MYO is located in the Erongo Region.

These people who are condemned to live with this terrible disease, and eventually to die with it, are the mothers and fathers or older siblings of our children. And that rate of infection is staggering. We have no way of knowing how many of our children are infected.

These realities are not an excuse for us to shy away from the challenge, they are in fact the reason we are here. When one is here, witnessing the intense struggle for life and dignity that most of the people of Mondesa must endure each day, and are doing so with a smile and joy that many with far better circumstances cannot seem to muster, it is an easy reminder of why we cannot simply ignore the situation.

There is a direct and inverse relationship between level of education and rates of infection of infectious disease. MYO and programs like MYO, will ultimately be where the battle against this disease will be won. Programs which educate the individuals and promote behavior change versus simple awareness.

This past weekend, I once again presented at the Ohio University symposium on Health, Science and Sport in Africa. My main focus was to emphasize the need for education-based development programs as the single most effective approach for addressing the problems of HIV, economic development and the elimination of poverty. All data shows that education is the key to these problems, and we need to direct the world’s resources to those programs that focus on long-term youth development, using education as the cornerstone.

It is the long and difficult approach surely, but there simply is no magic bullet to eliminating poverty, or the diseases that afflict the impoverished.

- Rob

Katie Cleary has joined the staff of MYO as Field Manger. In this capacity, Katie is responsible for quality of development and delivery of all MYO programs and services. In addition, she will foster community relations and solicit local funding support in Namibia and assist Rob and the Board of Directors as we continue to expand our infrastructure and service offerings and prepare for continued growth in the coming years.

Katie has a Master of Arts in Social Work from Boston College, as well as a Master of Arts in Spiritual Psychology from University of Santa Monica. She comes to MYO with many years of experience as a youth counselor and social worker in a variety of venues. Katie manages all the MYO staff in Namibia and we are looking forward to a great year under her leadership.

One of the primary differentiators between MYO and other NGO’s is that we are absolutely committed to maintaining a learning environment. We are in no way a day care center. Every program we put in place has specific guidelines for curriculum development, delivery format, expected results, measurement of effectiveness, and a quality management feedback loop. If we are not able to offer a program that meets defined objectives and can be delivered to our standards of excellence, we do not put that program in place.

A good example is our music program. We did not offer music in our first couple of years because we did not have the resources or appropriate teacher to build a quality program. But in 2006, we were fortunate enough to have Pamela become available as a teacher, and to get some local sponsorship for instruments -- and so our music program was born. It was an immediate and resounding success. Pamela provided excellent music instruction in a well-rounded and comprehensive program, as opposed to just forming a small children’s choir. A small choir would have looked good on the surface, and perhaps even been a quick hit to bring attention to MYO, but it is not the same as creating the foundation for an excellent long term program through instruction of music theory, appreciation and practical application using a variety of instruments including the voice.

Pamela has already identified a very well trained and qualified local music teacher to take over when she leaves at the end of 2007. Perpetuation and capacity planning was a specific topic of focus for us while I was here in during this visit.

Academics

In our academic program, Casey de Kalb will work with MYO Field Manager Katie Cleary to manage our ongoing effort to refine our curriculum and manage quality. By adding Clementine Garises to our Board of Directors, Casey and Katie now have access to two highly qualified education professionals to provide guidance and structure.

One of our primary objectives in the first term is to establish an empirical measurement standard for our academic program. We know that our children are receiving more awards for academics at the school prize-giving ceremonies, but we now will move to graph the average scores of all students in the schools, and plot where our children fall within that average. We will do this at the beginning and end of each school year, and our goal is to see a result of continued increase in gap between the scores of MYO children over the average of the school.

However, even this can be misleading. Our goals are not to be satisfied with being the best in our schools, our goal is to affect a level of education with our children similar to that from a child in a fully developed education system. It is a very difficult challenge, but it must be our objective if we are to help these kids get into university one day.

Sport, Performing Arts, and Activity

Beau Husfloen will manager this program for us in the 2007 year. In addition to escalating our investment in the music program, we will also be adding several new sports and activities. We will add a volleyball program, a chess program, and implementing several lower-key activities that are designed for basic exercise and to allow the children to debrief after their long sessions in the classroom.

In Tennis, Julian Dausab has been promoted to Head Tennis Coach. One of our main goals in 2007 is to get Julian to either the International Tennis Federation Level I Certification Course, or through the U.S. Professional Tennis Registry Course. We have 7 MYO tennis players listed in the top 10 rankings in Namibia in their age groups, and we intend to continue to support the development of our children’s tennis skills as much as practical. While we are not primarily a tennis program overall, tennis does provide the foundation for development of a number of assets that otherwise are marginalized or non-existence in the impoverished environment of Mondesa.

Alexis Hillyard will manage our Life Skills programming this year. Working with Katie, Alexis will significantly expand our services in this area. We will develop and deliver specific curriculum and/or practical workshops and field trips on HIV/AIDS awareness, leadership skills development, community service projects, and confidence building. As our children get older, they begin to become much more at risk to the negative elements that inevitably exist in an impoverished community -- the life skills program is designed to counter these negative influences and also to foster positive social, interpersonal and leadership traits.