WESTERN PROVINCE KARONGI — Claudine Mukandekezi is a mother of three. She has joined ‘Twugarire Turugarijwe’ –- an anti -Aids club. This women’s club is financed by the Adventist Relief and Development Agency (ADRA) under its Uniformed Personnel and Prisoners Project (UPP). Helped by ADRA coordinators, the women’s group is trained mainly on HIV/Aids awareness and how to set up small scale businesses. Visiting the club during their training in Rugabano Sector, the women are gathered some with children and their husbands. They hold discussions on different topics related to the Aids pandemic. Mukamurekezi’s husband has been in prison for the last ten years. He is about to be released. She believes her husband has not contracted Aids and she objects to condom use. ‘We cannot use a condom with my husband I am sure there is no Aids in prisons. He is safe,’ she says. But her colleagues challenge her. They say Aids has no borders it is everywhere even in prisons. Most married couples mostly in villages believe condoms are for commercial sex workers. However, this belief changes after a series of discussions, according to the women. They share experiences and successes of each one in the society in as far as combating the disease is concerned. Matilida Mukansaga, another member of the women’s anti Aids club says she started to use condoms because she no longer wanted to have another baby. After years of living together as a couple, what they currently need is to maintain a family of only six children who are now aged between one to nine years. She says she convinced her husband against engaging in unprotected sex. ‘The decision I have taken has really helped me gain hope because I don’t trust my husband,’ she says. However, she adds her husband was against such a move in the beginning. ‘At first we could engage in a heated debate but later he gave in,’ she says. Apart from Aids training sessions, ADRA has been teaching these people literacy skills including reading and writing. 78 percent of women in the Rugabano Sector were said to be illiterate. But currently, the number has dramatically reduced.These women say since they started setting up small businesses with aid from ADRA, getting loans from banks has been easy. ADRA’s intervention has also had crosscutting engagements within the fields of education and entrepreneurship. Ends
