the need
In Mabule, Botswana, adolescent and youth development is profoundly impacted due to the loss of one or both parents to the AIDS virus, an HIV/AIDS related disease, or extreme economic hardship due to physical limitations. These dire situations often leads Botswana’s youth to engage in multiple key drivers of HIV transmission including: multiple and concurrent sexual partners, intergenerational sex and economically asymmetrical relationships, alcohol abuse and high risk behavior, stigma and discrimination, and gender bias and sexual abuse. To combat these drivers, Mabule needs healthy alternatives that strengthen community involvement and empower youth to take control over and improve upon their own health and lifestyle, so as not to have to engage in high risk, life threatening behaviors.
the way forward
We believe SOCOBA’s planned goals and activities to strengthen the community and create a unified voice to fight against HIV/AIDS stigma and discrimination can be accomplished through open collaboration and community partnerships. In order to achieve this, targeted programs that capacitate at-risk and disabled youth to keep themselves healthy and free from disease, will enable youth to make life choices that promote an economically contributive future for themselves and for their families. Together, we have the collective power and potential to break the dreadful cycle of poverty-disease-death.
