Support for International Change University Clubs Program

Vital Stats

Anna S

New York, xx

  • people helped250
  • People Doing It 12

The Problem

Few opportunities exist for young Tanzanians to actively engage in service and develop leadership skills, though their desire to serve their country is high. Simultaneously, while young adults are at high risk for HIV, many misconceptions about the disease remain among this population. Despite perhaps having received knowledge in the past, this knowledge has yet to translate into behavior change. Many students may not have had access to a life skills curriculum before, as life skills is a fairly recent addition to many HIV prevention programs. Life skills is a crucial part to HIV education as it allows young adults to take that crucial step to apply knowledge into change. Additionally, recent surveys have shown that those with higher levels of education and greater wealth in Tanzania are at greater risk of contracting HIV (THMIS 2008). Targeting university students with HIV prevention education may help to reduce this trend. Strong evidence also exists that peer education is an effective tool to educate young adults about HIV and how to protect themselves. There continues to be a need to provide Tanzanian youth with leadership development and new opportunities in community development. While some Tanzanians have tried to establish HIV clubs at their universities before, these clubs have generally been unsustainable. Anecdotal evidence exists that service-oriented clubs are few, and most HIV related clubs are focused on supporting and/or visiting orphaned children.

Plan of Action

This project was developed out of the desire and passion of former Tanzanian volunteers with SIC, who actively worked with the organization to develop this program. Two clubs are currently being established - one at the Institute of Accountancy of Arusha (IAA) and the other at the University of Dodoma (UDOM, one of Tanzania's largest universities. Each club is fairly autonomous, though the club leaders, along with the SIC Project Officer, developed a constitution that guides the clubs. It is difficult to establish new clubs on Tanzanian campuses, so the club leaders (2 at each university) have been working tirelessly to cut through the red tape. SIC IAA is now the leader of HIV programs under a larger service organization on its campus. SIC UDOM has been working closely with the campus medical officer and is nearly fully registered. Both clubs have already become active, with SIC UDOM providing education and condom distribution to its dormitories. SIC IAA held its first introductory meeting just before they closed for winter break, and had over 30 people sign up to join the club. Future plans for both clubs include training club members to become HIV peer educators, organizing on-campus HIV testing days, helping to mobilize people to test with the main SIC organization in rural areas, visiting with nearby HIV-positive support groups, and providing mini HIV awareness campaigns to their campuses and surrounding communities. A leadership development workshop is being organized for the club leaders and leadership board as well. This workshop will expose these dedicated educators to planning tools and techniques, discuss issues related to time management, conflict resolution, and problem-solving, basic proposal writing, fundraising ideas,club sustainability, and also introduce participatory teaching methods and give them a change to practice teaching with each other. Clubs of this type are virtually unheard of in Tanzania, so the leaders are excited to become pioneers on their campuses while also serving their country.
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