PRESS RELEASES

Tebelopele Voluntary Counseling and Testing Center opens in Molepolole

February 2,2007

MOLEPOLOLE, Botswana, Africa — The official dedication marking the opening of the Tebelopele Voluntary Counseling and Testing Center (VCTC) is scheduled to take place here Wed., Feb. 28, 2007, at 11:00 a.m.  United States Ambassador to Botswana Katherine Canavan, General William F. Hobbins, U.S. Air Forces Europe commander, and Kgosi Kgari Sechele III, Bakwena Paramount Chief will conduct the ceremony.

The project was made possible through donations from the U.S. Department of Defense, European Command. The Defense Department’s Office of Defense Cooperation Humanitarian Assistance program has provided over P1,405,000 for the construction of the center. The Molepolole VCTC is the first of five centers in a $1.45 million emergency humanitarian assistance project to be completed by the end of this year.  Additional centers will be located at Mochudi, Lobatse, Maun and Francistown. 

The Molepolole VCTC is the eighth center out of 12 VCTCs that the Department of Defense will construct in Botswana. The collective cost for all of the centers is about $3 million. The program, which started in 2001, was created to provide counseling and testing centers in every major population area in Botswana. The center will serve the 70,000 people in Molepolole as well as thousands from the surrounding area. 

The center will be staffed by Tebelopele, a nongovernmental organization initially created by the U.S. government and funded by the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.