Working To Empower Generates Awareness
Started just three years ago, Working to Empower (WTE) has been doing commendable work in the field of HIV/AIDS education. Logan Cochrane, the man behind the venture, realized the need for reaching out to such people and groups to generate more awareness about the deadly disease.
Working without any office, staff, vehicle or funds, WTE has been serving the society in five African nations: Benin, Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo), Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Uganda.
It is worthwhile to mention that at the age of 20 years when young people prefer to hang out with friends and plan for a career, Logan Cochrane started thinking about innovative methods for HIV/AIDS education.
Organizations such as the Stephen Lewis Foundation and ACDA (Agoro Community Development Association) have proved to be reliable partners in this mission.
WTE is attempting to provide trained peer educators for the purpose of sustainable, locally-driven and community-requested projects. It aims to be culturally appropriate and socially acceptable in all of its actions while working in partnership with community-based organizations.
On being queried about the way WTE differs in its operations from other groups Logan says, "One unique aspect to WTE is our focus on local capacity building and creation of local peer educators." This, he says, is unlike other similar groups who may send people from other countries, who in turn will later leave, thus taking away that knowledge with them.
In the recent past WTE has also been working in close coordination with ACDA, an organization working to provide a voice for the oppressed and disadvantaged groups in the community.
Besides cooperation on HIV/AIDS education, WTE and ACDA have been working together on many projects including:
- Women's group — where a group of women make necklaces and WTE helps to sell them in Canada to raise funds. The proceeds of this project have helped to start others, like a piggery project.
- Sponsorship — which helps to put orphaned girls into a boarding school as there is no secondary school in the Agoro camp for internally displaced persons (IDP).
- A millet grinding machine income-generating project.
Generating awareness and taking care of an actual patient require different kinds of resources and strategies, but there are times when the situation occurs for WTE to take care of the medical needs of someone who tests positive for this dreaded virus.
Though not well equipped, WTE has also been supporting some projects like those in Ethiopia where orphans living with HIV/AIDS are cared for fulltime.
On being asked about the plans and strategies for spreading the message for others to follow, Logan says, "WTE uses a method of education called choices-based, which means we describe all the types of transmissions and methods of prevention, with their associated risk.
"Everyone is therefore able to decide what is best for their life — as opposed to telling them what to do, or only giving one preventative method. We empower people to make informed choices."
Talking about the limitations of time and money coupled with the difficulties of finding committed volunteers, Logan underlines the need for more proactive approaches on the part of all concerned organizations, so that the volunteers get enough encouragement.
While emphasizing that WTE is becoming much stricter in regards to what projects and partners will be accepted in an effort to be more efficient, accountable, effective, and locally-driven, Logan says that he'd like to explore ways and means to work in close coordination with the RESPECT community so that the movement gains more momentum.
RESPECT International values the spirit behind this campaign and wishes the dedicated team of volunteers behind WTE all success.