TAG = "condoms"

Participants

Usually our programme activities involved, besides us, the villagers, CDC experts, a couple of village committee members. But this time there was something special. The village committee members paid real special attention to the programme, so they invited the Mangshi Town’s Party Secretary and vice governors, and Mr. Zhao, head of the Mangshi Town Hospital, brought another head of the hospital and a doctor. The head of the CDC invited the head of Luxi County HIV/AIDS Bureau. The village committee also arranged a singing and dancing for entertainment. Ben also joined the session. Therefore, we had a really big group on our part.

Activities

As usual, we bought small gifts such as towels, tooth-brushes, tooth-pastes, washing pwder, soaps, mosquito coils for the village families as well as some pencils, erasers and exercise books for the village students.

The activity began in the evening around 9 o’clock. The Dai villagers usually finish their supper around 8 o’clock, so when they gathered around the meeting place, it was around 8:30 p.m. But when everything was ready, it was about 9:00 p.m. Nearly 300 villagers participated.

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Claire’s (in-country project manager) personal account.

In August it rained a lot in Dehong Prefecture, which is a sub-tropical area. Usually it rains throughout the season from June till September, so we decided to carry out the project in different ways. In June and July we couldn’t make up our minds.

Then in late July we decided to set up an INFORMATION INQUIRY CENTRE on a street in Mangshi Town. Most sex workers live in the neighbourhood, and it is also where the market is located. Every day people trade for goods here; and every five days it is a centre of larger-scaled market, when people from towns and villages all over Luxi City come here to sell and buy things.

We set up the CENTRE at this location because it is really the centre and we can more easily get access to common local people who need our service. We furnished the CENTRE on August 6-7 with a TV, a big cupboard, some tables, desks, stools, and some brochures, pamphlets on HIV/AIDS and some sexual diseases such as the clap, syphilis, etc. Condoms are in the glass cupboard so that people visiting our CENTRE can see and ask for them if they need some.

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