EIL Intercultural Learning

Nigeria, 2 months on, a crazy, harrowing, intense, enlightening and wonderful experience. Nothing can prepare you for the depth of this experience, from working on the ground with people living and dealing with HIV/AIDS, to trying to help with the myriad of other problems that poverty and non-access to basic infrastucture and state support leads to. What will leave a lasting impression with me and Karen and the other volunteers, is despite the hardship, the resilience and warmth of the Nigerian people.While some Nigerian writers and commentators have been critical of this stoicism and belief that religion would solve all problems, what shone through for us were the many acts of kindness we received.

The most enlightening part of my time there was working on the ground in Living Hope Care with direct issues around HIV/AIDS and sometimes issues that were connected with it. Living Hope Care was initially founded by Mrs. Fakande, our boss, and a retired nurse. A person living with HIV/AIDS presented themselves to her and she cared for this person in her own house. This was the origins of Living Hope Care. It has now expanded to try and meet the physical and emotional needs for 3,000 OVC’s, (Orphans and Vulnerable Children) in the greater Ilesa area. Approximately 10% of these children would have lost parents directly due to death from HIV/AIDS.

These children would now be cared for by ageing grandparents or a nominated carer, maybe some other relation. While registering these children in schools, we saw many wonderful examples of relations in extended families taking on the role of caring for the children. The reasons the children were being registered by Living Hope Care was they offer them nutritional,emotional and educational support, Michael a former EIL participant and fellow Kilkenny Cat, has been very involved in this in the last few years. We brought some kind of corn, with nutritional value, to about 200 children once a week and gave them copybooks and pencils for the new school year. Karen and myself were also involved in kids clubs after school, where they learnt games and activities in a positive and encouraging environment.

We also had direct experiences with people living with HIV/AIDS. One of my first assignments was to talk to people living with HIV/AIDS and their experiences. What came across almost immediately was the lack of education and awareness about how the virus had been transmitted, only about 2 in 10 realised that it could have been transmitted by sexual intercourse before they got the virus. The big issues of stigma and discrimination were a huge strain on their lives, most people might have been able to tell one or two people, family or friends, but very few could be open about it to everyone, in some cases the person was unable to tell anyone and they had a large family themselves. There have been positive developments with regard to the treatment of HIV/AIDS in Nigeria, the Nigerian government in conjunction with PEPFAR(the Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief), American funded, has made available free antiretroviral drugs. In the majority of cases people took this medication diligently and were living normal lives. The complex link between HIV/AIDS and poverty however can threaten this, as many people had contracted other illnesses due to their supressed immune system such as malaria, and couldn’t afford to pay for malaria drugs and there is no state funding for this.

Living Hope Care work extends far out into the communities in the small villages and towns in the greater Ilesa/Osugbo area. We met with Pastors, church leaders and other community groups and leaders to try and drive initiatives that would offer support to families of OVC’s especially. Living Hope Care also has an important role as an educator,especially in the role of prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS. We visited commercial sex workers in the brothels in Ilesa and gave them condoms at a very reduced rate and showed them how to use them properly. In one brothel, we were talking to the sex workers, in a kind of a bar, with a guy with a shotgun beside us, turns out he was a local policeman being paid to guard the place. There were a good few other men listening to the talk and laughing at first, but after a while they started listening and then started enquiring about getting tested themselves. We got out alive anyway! The ultimate aim of the project is to offer the sex workers retraining on a work skill programme, and they would get financial assistance to start up their own business.

The many challenges that Living Hope Care face and which is probarbly replicated by similar NGO’s is access to, and lack of resources to provide adequate support. While interviewing the Nurse in Living Hope Care, who deals with people living with HIV/AIDS, her only instrument in the surgery apart from the testing kits was a weighing scales. Access to proper surgical delivery kits and surgical gloves is also a huge problem for treating pregnant women. Manpower is also a huge issue, there is a wonderful and dedicated staff in Living Hope Care, but in order for training and education programmes to be carried out in the surrounding towns and villages, health workers have to be trained and they’re starting from a very low base, Living Hope Care is basically trying to fill the huge gap that’s left by minimal state intervention, and is fighting an uphill struggle.

Our awareness raising programme in Ireland will have a few different parts to it. One part will be to fund-raise to try and support some of the vital resources mentioned above that are needed, we hope to have a 50K or 100k cycle, Karen, Lynda and Ciara and myself to raise awareness and funds. I hope to have a music or cultural event myself to do the same.I teach in a multi-cultural school and I’m working on a number of projects at the moment related to this with the children. They’re working on a project on Nigeria, studying customs, cultures, music, food, storytelling, history, languages and some of the Nigerian parents are getting involved also. In conjunction with this they’re learning about the Millenium Goals.

At the end of this I’m going to introduce HIV/AIDS as one of the Millenium Goals and our experiences, and have a workshop type day. I feel it’s important that they have a background or context to put this into, as some of the children are very aware that Africa is depicted very negatively by the Western Media, I didn’t want the issues of HIV/AIDS to be seen as an extension of this, but that Nigeria has also a very rich and vibrant cultural identity. They will write a letter to the local Community Voice newspaper, outlining what things can be done to help with the issues and enter their project to the Irish Aid Awards. I will also write an article for the Community Voice about my experiences.

In spite of these relentless daily challenges, the Nigerian people are an incredibly hospitable, warm and good-natured people.The weddings and birthdays were such an expression of joy, the bride and groom dance into the church, and the whole wedding party dances behind them. At a child’s tenth birthday party Grandma and Great Grandma had a dance off as they were the two best dancers there, I can safely say my dancing improved, it was so bad, some of the elder people took me aside and offered me lessons! There was so much madness and fun as well as everything in the five weeks, and I met so many great people, my fellow cat, Sister Karen, and all the other volunteers and the great staff in Living Hope Care who treated us as if we were relations of theirs. It was great for me to return to my sort of roots, as my father had worked as a teacher in Abeokuta and my mother as a nurse in the 1960’s and they had got married in Ibadan. O se Nigeria and EIL!