Jean Claude Mugunga - Rwanda Village Concept Project, Rwanda
September 2007
Mr. Mugunga is National Vice Coordinator of the Rwanda Village Concept Project, a student-run organization at the National University of Rwanda (www.rwanda-vcp.org). He is also the National Focal Point of Rwanda within the Global Youth Coalition on HIV/AIDS (www.youthaidscoalition.org). As co-founder of the Hygiene, Water and Sanitation Microproject within the Rwanda Village Concept Project, Mr. Mugunga served as Head Coordinator from 2005 to January 2007, then elected as the National vice coordinator.The HIVSRH Integration site interviewed Mr. Mugunga about his experience with providing integrated services in Rwanda.
Please tell us about your project experience integrating HIV/AIDS and sexual and reproductive health services.
RCVP is the Rwanda Village Concept Project. The project seeks to improve the health of citizens of underprivileged communities in Rwanda. In our activities we have five microprojects. Among them is one dealing with HIV, reproductive health, and family planning. A survey of rural families was conducted in Rwanda in 1995. The survey showed that adolescents lacked knowledge about reproductive health, family planning and HIV. We decided to start the project in Rwanda to educate young people in rural areas about these issues. The main objective of the program was to teach adolescents about reproductive health , HIV/AIDS, and family planning issues.
What was the problem you were responding to when you developed the program?
When we started the project the main problem was the prevalence of HIV/AIDS among young people in Rwanda. The prevalence according to the data available to us was about 11 percent among young people. But in rural areas, the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in rural areas was not known. Some young people were moving from rural areas to towns, got infected with HIV and went back to the villages to contaminate other people in rural areas because they lacked information about reproductive health and HIV/AIDS. Also, as a result of Rwandan culture, people in rural areas did not want to talk about sexual health and HIV/AIDS. That is why we started this project focusing on rural areas, especially young people.
When you mentioned adolescents lacked knowledge about reproductive health, what specific knowledge did they lack?
It is not easy, maybe because of our culture, to talk openly about sex and reproductive health. The information is lacking in reproductive health. They don't know human anatomy so that is what we had to teach them about--physiology and anatomy of the reproductive system. At the end, we taught them about family planning and the project is still going on.
What were the dates of the project?
We started the microprojects in reproductive health/HIV Awareness and family planning in 2000. The project is renewable after every 3 years. We have a contract until 2012.
We started the microprojects in reproductive health/HIV Awareness and family planning in 2000. The project is renewable after every 3 years. We have a contract until 2012.
Who is your funding organization?
We received funds from many different people and organizations. We have received funds from the National University of Rwanda, and we also get some funding from the Population Services International branch in Rwanda. Also, we get some non-monetary assistance from the Ministry of Health. We get some support from the World Health Organization office in Rwanda. In 2007, the total budget used is from IFMSA-SCORA SWEEDEN (International Federation of Medical Students Associations, Standing Committee on Reproductive health and AIDS). Additionally, our international volunteers provide most of the funding for our projects.
Who is responsible for teaching the youth in rural areas?
Our program utilizes volunteer peer educators. The peer educator volunteers are students in different faculties in universities. The majority of the volunteer peer educators are medical students. At the beginning there was one center here in the province of Rwanda, Centre DUSHISHOZE, and they had peer educators with experience in educating about HIV/AIDS and reproductive health. These peer educators used to go to the health centers and did not meet with the community directly. We had to ask the center to allow those peer educators to come to work with and teach our volunteers how to be effective peer educators.
Do the peer educators currently receive any training before working?
Every year we get new peer educators. We used to give them a short training on the subject of reproductive health, HIV, and family planning.
Who was involved in the discussion and decision-making on the approach to take to address the problem of lack of reproductive health knowledge among youth?
The RCVP staff took a large role in planning the project. The staff discussed the project with the District Committee in charge of health, hygiene and general health. They also went to discuss the project with the local leaders.
Can you speak a little more about the local leaders? How did you involve them?
The local leaders are the core representatives of the population and can know and assess what the populations needs and know the best approach to use in the project. We had to approach the local leaders because to approach the whole community in order to decide was not possible.
You mentioned condoms--do you give them out or tell people about them?
Condoms are an HIV prevention method that we teach about. Because of the policy[1] here in Rwanda, condoms are not given for free. Since agencies wish to give people the choice to have protected sex they try to sell them at cheap prices. Our program tries to provide people with the cheapest condoms so that they can have them easily.
When you were reaching out to the youth and educating them about HIV and health issues how did you convince them to listen to the information?
We used to group them into anti-AIDS clubs. Currently, it's not up to us to try to organize them because they have their own committees. When they get organized into these clubs we used to visit them and teach them all these integrated subjects -- HIV, reproductive health, and family planning. When they are grouped together it's easy to convince them because they have a platform where they are interested in interacting, sharing ideas and learning from the sessions.
We have also organized all youth who are not at school into clubs. They have projects and it is easy for us to follow up and teach them -- and to overcome some cultural taboos regarding reproductive health. When they are organized we try to help them to create drama groups where they can play theaters and sing songs talking about reproductive health and HIV. The groups allow them to teach others and also make them talk about reproductive health, talk about HIV without any problems and without being difficult to their parents or someone who lives with them. Our clubs, the organizations that we have created, are our main success.
When you went to talk to youth, if any of the youth needed medical services did you refer them to medical clinics?
Yes we did. We are in partnership with Centre DUSHISHOZE -- and they always treat those infections and they give counseling to the youth.
When you go to rural youth, you teach about HIV. What kind of family planning do you teach?
The kind of family planning we teach is in two groups. It comes at the end of the program after HIV education. After we teach them about the importance of family planning we start to tell them the methods in two groups -- artificial and natural methods.
When you started this program did you encounter any obstacles?
There were two main challenges in implementing the program. The first was a lack of sufficient funding. Because our staff and the people working on our project are volunteers and students they are not able to be paid because of lack of sufficient funds. Another obstacle is culture - here it is not accepted for parents to talk to children directly about sex, HIV, and reproductive health in general, but we are trying to change this. However, we overcame that by grouping youth into clubs where they were able to more openly talk about these things.
Did you evaluate the program?
Yes, the evaluation was through the youth anti-HIV club, because the project is still going on. Our peer educators used to visit them every weekend. We find when the clubs are strong and meeting regularly, objectives are reached.
For more information about RCVP in Rwanda: http://www.rwanda-vcp.org/
Jean Claude Mugunga
Rwanda- VCP Vice Coordinator
Faculty of Medicine
National University of Rwanda
PO Box 30 Butare
Tel +250 08843370
E-mail: jcmugunga@yahoo.fr
[1] See the Rwanda National Policy on Condoms, draft 6 Feb 2006, at http://www.cnls.gov.rw/pdf/policy_condom.pdf. The policy states: “While there is need for the poorest segments of the society to get free-of-charge condoms, the private commercial sector should accommodate people who can afford to pay more for condoms thus alleviating the burden on the public sector to subsidize, and priming the commercial market for economic development and increased purchasing power.”