Hlathikulu Teen Club

As I’m sure most of you know who regularly follow our blog, Doug’s primary ‘project’ outside of his clinical responsibilities at Baylor is developing Teen Club. Doug has jumped in feet first with this project and following the lead of Baylor’s Teen Club in Botswana worked to secure funding and human resources in order to expand support to HIV positive teens in Swaziland. As an amateur grant writer, Doug has had a lot of success (who can say no to helping HIV positive teens?!) and has received grants to hire two, third year Peace Corps volunteers to work as Teen Club Program Coordinators. The development of these roles was necessary because Doug had recently also received funding to expand Teen Club to every region of the country and needed additional manpower to do so. Previously, there was only one Teen Club in Mbabane for all of the positive teens in Swaziland. This meant that teens traveled from every corner of the country one Saturday a month in order to participate. Now, I am happy to report that there are THREE Teen Clubs and a fourth coming soon in September (Doug’s long term goal is to have 8 in operation by 2012). Which brings me to the purpose of this blog post (besides cheering on my husband); the opening of the Hlathikulu Teen Club!!!

On Saturday, June 26 Doug and the Teen Club Team opened a third Teen Club in the southeastern region of Swaziland. There is a satellite Baylor Clinic in Hlathi and the doctor there had been actively inviting teens to attend the new Teen Club when they came in for their regular appointments. Additionally, Michelle was also inviting teens from her outreach site in a neighboring community. The hope was to recruit 50 teens by word of mouth to attend and to establish the foundation for the new Teen Club. I am happy to report that 99 teens registered on opening day! Ninety-nine! Fortunately, Jacqui, Kim and the Swazi volunteers had a beautifully organized program for the day and were able to accommodate the unexpected additions with ease. Doubly fortunately, I had visited the ATM that morning because the opening day budget was short E1400 when all was said and done including lunch and transport! Because public transportation is so expensive in Swaziland, the teens are reimbursed for the full cost of their transport upon their departure.

As usual, this story is best told in pictures…

Doug, Jacqui and Kim (Peace Corps Alumni/Teen Club Program Coordinators) standing next to the ‘Welcome’ sign one of the Swazi volunteers designed

The satellite Baylor Clinic is on the Hlathikulu hospital grounds (Little Lemmy joined in on the fun, too)

Baylor Clinic – Hlathikulu

Set-up

One important goal in operating Teen Clubs is to have Swazi volunteers actively involved. The objective is for Doug and the coordinators to take care of behind the scenes tasks and to have Swazis as the spokespeople. This is for a couple of reasons, but most importantly so that the Teen Clubs can continue to thrive when Doug and the coordinators return to the States. The point person for Hlathi is Mduduzi and he is a Swazi social worker who is working for Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF)(or ‘Doctors without Borders’). There are also a number of Swazi nurses, expert clients and other people interested in supporting the teens who participate each month.

Swazi Volunteers

Teens making their name tags

While the team was running the ‘front of the house’ operations, I was in the kitchenette trying to sort out lunch. Since we had only expected 50 teens and only purchased enough bread/fillings to make 70 sandwiches, we had to make an emergency run to the local market. While I made the first 50 bologna or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, I had to bring in reinforcements for round two. Noxolo and Tenele were (thankfully) very eager to be of assistance. By the time lunch rolled around, the three of us had made and wrapped 120 sandwiches with two cookies and an apple per person.

Michelle and Stephanie are Baylor doctors who work at the satellite clinic or neighboring outreach clinic and made the trek south to welcome their patients to the new Teen Club.

Playing games

Working in small groups to determine the rules for the new Teen Club

Through the hard work of many, there is now a Teen Club in operation 3 Saturdays a month in 3 different regions of the country. Positive teens are coming together in a stigma free environment to learn and most importantly to have fun; because at the end of the day they’re just kids trying to cope with a grown-up disease.