Press Releases 2007  

Peace Corps Trainees meet their host Batswana families in Thamaga

 19 April ,2007  

On Monday, April 23, 2007, at 11:00 a.m. at Thamaga Community Junior Secondary School, 43 families from Thamaga, Kumakwane and Moshupa will meet the newly-arrived Peace Corps trainees they will host for 8 weeks.  Each trainee is matched to a homestay family.  The families provide housing for the Peace Corps trainees, who will be undergoing pre-service training.

During their stay in the villages, the Peace Corps trainees will study Setswana, and learn about Batswana culture and practices, the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Botswana, as well as other information they will need in their service.   They are preparing to be effective volunteers in the areas of District AIDS Coordination, community capacity-building in the Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMCT) services, capacity-building in non-governmental agencies providing services to orphans and vulnerable children, and a new Life Skills pilot program.     

 Since Peace Corps’ return to Botswana, it has been heavily engaged in the process of identifying appropriate and effective programming areas that focus on HIV/AIDS.  In collaboration with the National AIDS Coordinating Agency (NACA), Peace Corps initiated its activities in partnership with the Ministry of Local Government (MLG).  Volunteers work directly with District HIV/AIDS Coordinators to build capacity in the implementation of HIV/AIDS programming, as well as in the mobilization of community-led responses.

A second program placed Volunteers in three project areas at the sub-district level in village-level clinics:  home-based and orphan care (HB/OC) and the prevention of mother to child transmission program (PMTCT).   Peace Corps partners with the Department of Social Services within MLG on the HB/OC program.  The PMTCT project is a collaborative effort with MLG, the Ministry of Health, and the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Botswana (BOTUSA).  

Under the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), Peace Corps has further expanded its mandate and the number of Volunteers in Botswana with a focus on building capacity of non-governmental organizations serving orphans and vulnerable children.  A new program will be piloted in partnership with the Ministry of Education (MoE) in mid-2007 focusing on roll-out of the Life Skills curriculum (jointly developed by MoE and BOTUSA).

At present, the number of Peace Corps volunteers in country stands at 61.  Some will end their two or three years of service this month and next month, leaving 34 Volunteers, many of whom will help train the new trainee group.

For further detail, please contact:  Laona Segaetsho, Information Specialist, Public Affairs, U.S. Embassy, at Telephone: 3953982 Ext: 5419, E-mail: SegaetshoLJ@state.gov or Angelinah Matenanga, at Telephone: 3953982 Ext: 5415, E-mail: MatenangaAB@state.gov.