Jessica Moorman

Cato Crest:

All of these experiences set the stage for the profound shift of my focus and my thinking in Cato Crest. I felt this shift after facing one of the hardest challenges of the work we did. At Cato Crest primary, the affects of HIV/AIDS were seen and felt in different ways. Children had lost brothers, sisters, parents, friends or even were infected themselves without truly understanding HIV/AIDS. While they could repeat back the slogans of a banking education they did fully grasp the meaning of what they were saying. Based on what I saw in the kids I could tell that their education of HIV/AIDS had been one of fear and loss. Yet the light heartedness of their childhood was not dampened. What makes this experience at Cato Crest so important and dear to me is seeing the children fully realize what HIV/AIDS is and what it can do. However, this was a double-edged sword of consciousness.

At Cato Crest Jennifer was my teaching partner, we had worked through the week up set about the stock answers that these kids were giving, but we tried our hardest. In one of our sessions we began as usual with a discussion about how one can contract HIV/AIDS. We were working with 9-12 year olds and one of the little boys raised his hand to ask me a question. “If someone gets raped in the butt by someone with HIV can they get it?” Jennifer and I paused and answered honestly and we continued on with the discussion. A few moments later I looked back at the little boy to see him wiping tears out of his eyes. He asked his honest question and got an honest answer, and realized he had HIV. In this instance empowerment became so important to me. Being able to stand up and say what ever I feel to who ever I feel is something that I had taken for granted. Living in a country where, by comparison, the prevalence of HIV/AIDS is almost nothing is something that I had taken for granted. Having knowledge of how to protect myself from this disease was something that I had taken for granted. Being able to protect myself from HIV was something I had taken for granted. Realizing this and realizing the importance of empowerment changed my thinking for the rest of the trip and undoubtedly the rest of my life. This idea was reaffirmed the next day during the farewell program when the children stood up and taught the module and asked questions. They owned that module, in Zulu, and therefore owned that information and owned the ability to teach each other about HIV/AIDS. I was able to give myself fully to these kids and give myself fully to their futures; I felt during this program that we all had a fighting chance.

-Jessica Moorman