This week’s local outreach was on Monday and Tuesday. We worked with a local ministry that goes to schools and offers HIV testing for the students. I think the youngest we tested was 9, but if they are younger than 13 they had to have a consent form signed by their parents. If, by chance, the child is HIV positive, they don’t tell them right then. They first meet with the parents and tell them before telling the child. But at the school, they teach the classes about AIDS and HIV and tell them to ‘fear the blood’- to never touch someone else’s blood. It was a good experience. There was enough of us (staff and students) to man the tents and to play with the kids when they were on break.
The school was huge and we had our tents set up in the ‘playground’ area. That meant that on breaks there was a FLOOD of kids! And I mean a flood. The kids really enjoyed coping whatever you were doing, like Simon Says or Follow the Leader. And since only a few of the older kids spoke a little English, we used a lot of games and songs with hand-motions.
The first day went really well. It was rather hot, but none of the kids tested positive. Unfortunately, on Tuesday, 2 kids tested positive. One of the kids was 14, the other was 10. When they meet with the parents, they instruct them to go take the child to get tested at the clinic where they actually draw blood for the test. The test that they use for the schools only requires a few drops and sometimes (very rarely) has false positives or false negatives. I pray that the kids that tested positive were one of the false positives.
The school was huge and we had our tents set up in the ‘playground’ area. That meant that on breaks there was a FLOOD of kids! And I mean a flood. The kids really enjoyed coping whatever you were doing, like Simon Says or Follow the Leader. And since only a few of the older kids spoke a little English, we used a lot of games and songs with hand-motions.
The first day went really well. It was rather hot, but none of the kids tested positive. Unfortunately, on Tuesday, 2 kids tested positive. One of the kids was 14, the other was 10. When they meet with the parents, they instruct them to go take the child to get tested at the clinic where they actually draw blood for the test. The test that they use for the schools only requires a few drops and sometimes (very rarely) has false positives or false negatives. I pray that the kids that tested positive were one of the false positives.
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