PEPFAR AND MIKE DYBUL!

Today was a normal day of school....UNTIL 5PM when Ambassador Mark Dybul came to our school to talk with us. He initiated PEPFAR (US President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief) During Bush's administration. PEPFAR is the biggest financial commitment to combatting HIV/AIDS the US has ever made...and Mark Dybul started it! As I said in my last post, we were in 4 groups and had to write an executive summary/proposal for how to reallocate PEPFAR funds, my group had Botswana, the country with the most HIV/AIDS cases in the world. We presented these proposals to him, and it was really cool. He really questioned us and made us realize that alot of the parts in our proposals couldn't work, and those were things he had to think about to craft policies. Our group said to give Botswana money to build more clinics and hospitals and train more doctors there...He said they have a ton of clinics, more than pretty much every country. That would not treat the problem either. Those were things we thought about, but overlooked. I agreed with him though, and brought up those points a few times yesterday. I had a pretty long on-going conversation with him during our group's time. What surprised me was that I knew enough about Botswana and the situation there to have a good conversation about it. I'm really happy I learned so much in just a couple of days. Meeting with him was AWESOME!

HIV/AIDS... & BOTSWANA

So our case study this week is on HIV and AIDS.

Earlier this week we learned about the actual virus and how it spreads, in alot of detail. We talked about alot of things regarding HIV/AIDS. We also talked about statistics, countries affected, racial differences, and the problem in DC (1 in 20 people has HIV/AIDS in DC).

Today, we were split into 4 groups. Each group was given a country dealing with HIV/AIDS. The countries were Uganda, the Ukraine, India, and Botswana. My group got Botswana, which has the worst AIDS epidemic globally, 1 in about 5 people there has HIV/AIDS. We went to meet with a Rep. at the Botswana embassy (2 houses down!) at 9:15 and we were there for about 2 hours! It was really cool, and the woman was really nice. The Ambassador wasn't there because he's at the Millennium Goal Discussion at the UN in New York. The woman was so informative and cool, she gave us tea and everything! And that turned out pretty well actually because the doctor told me to drink tea to get better (I'm still kinda sick). We then went back, talked with Gray (Academic Dean/History teacher/coolest guy ever) about different sources, and then we talked with Lucy (our RA/Super Woman) about how to write a memo and an Executive Summary. Our task was to write a proposal for how PEPFAR (U.S. Presiden't Plan for AIDS Relief) should reallocate money in Botswana, like where the money should go. We had to do a ton of research for the proposal, in a really really short period of time, but we got it done :). I thought the task was really cool but it was super stressful! We are presenting our memos to Mark Dybul on Friday, who is the guy who pretty much started and implemented PEPFAR during the Bush Administration. Oyyyy vey!!!! I'm excited but kind of nervous too.

P.S. the power in the house just went out. Great.