After spending four years studying biology at the University of Pennsylvania, Timothy Mah joined the Peace Corps and journeyed to The Gambia in 2001, hoping to educate young people about HIV/AIDS



After spending four years studying biology at the University of Pennsylvania, Timothy Mah joined the Peace Corps and journeyed to The Gambia in 2001, hoping to educate young people about HIV/AIDS

After spending four years studying biology at the University of Pennsylvania, Timothy Mah joined the Peace Corps and journeyed to The Gambia in 2001, hoping to educate young people about HIV/AIDS. He expected to dispense advice on subjects such as safe sex. He did not expect to first need to convince people that HIV existed.

"My initial job was to make people believe HIV was real," said Mah, now a master’s degree student at HSPH, at a Global Chat on September 29 in Kresge 213. "People generally did not talk about it." He later spoke with HPH NOW in a follow-up interview.

The Gambia is one of the smallest and one of the poorest African nations. When he arrived there, Mah, a native of Canton, Massachusetts, lived with a couple and their five children in a small village on the Atlantic coast. It took nine months for him to learn the language and figure out how he would approach the work he was sent to do.

Over the course of two years, Mah set up several small-scale HIV-prevention and education programs, working mainly in schools. When he initially coaxed young people into discussions about HIV/AIDS, he discovered a tangle of conspiracy theories and worries that reflected issues of culture, religion, and the legacy of Western colonialism. Some youth flat out denied that HIV existed. Some wondered why more Africans were dying from HIV/AIDS than Westerners if the virus was "discovered" in France and the U.S. Others challenged how a virus initially so closely associated with gay men in the West could be spreading in Africa since, the youth asserted, there are no homosexuals in Africa. Some charged that community-based AIDS prevention programs–with their emphasis on safe sex and abstinence–were veiled plots to reduce the population of Africa.

The anxieties over the origin of HIV/AIDS were compounded by a number of issues. Nearly seventy percent of adult women in the country are illiterate, said Mah. People infected with HIV generally are reluctant to discuss their status because infection carries a heavy social stigma. Testing at the time was only done at a handful of maternity clinics scattered across the countryside, so few people knew their status. There was virtually no treatment available to those who tested positive. The only way to get condoms was through clinics set up by the national health system, and the lack of availability led to sexually active young people reporting they had washed used condoms or turned them inside out so they could be re-used, he said.

Mah decided to focus his efforts on small groups of young people, using schools as a means to reach them. He conducted workshops, inviting HIV-positive Gambians as speakers. "My hope was that seeing truly would mean believing," he explained. "Some kids had heard you could get AIDS by stepping over dog urine or sharing a food bowl or cup with someone who has the disease." For many of the students, the HIV-infected speakers represented the students’ first opportunity to knowingly interact and question fellow Gambians living with the virus.

At a soccer training camp for teenage boys, Mah delivered a basic peer health education program, which included a strong HIV/AIDS prevention component. Among the skills he wanted to the boys to develop were those necessary for decision-making, negotiating, and good interpersonal communication. "In a lot of schools, boys have little experience speaking directly to elders or their girlfriends about using protection during sex," said Mah. "Developing these life skills will help them bridge those gaps."

After graduating from HSPH, Mah would like to continue focusing on AIDS prevention through field-program development work for an NGO and hopes to return one day to The Gambia.

--PHC
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When this story was posted in February 2005, this was on the front page of PCOL:

The Peace Corps Library Peace Corps Online is proud to announce that the Peace Corps Library is now available online. With over 30,000 index entries in over 500 categories, this is the largest collection of Peace Corps related reference material in the world. From Acting to Zucchini, you can use the Main Index to find hundreds of stories about RPCVs who have your same interests, who served in your Country of Service, or who serve in your state.

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Make a call for the Peace Corps PCOL is a strong supporter of the NPCA's National Day of Action and encourages every RPCV to spend ten minutes on Tuesday, March 1 making a call to your Representatives and ask them to support President Bush's budget proposal of $345 Million to expand the Peace Corps. Take our Poll: Click here to take our poll. We'll send out a reminder and have more details early next week.

Peace Corps Calendar:Tempest in a Teapot? Bulgarian writer Ognyan Georgiev has written a story which has made the front page of the newspaper "Telegraf" criticizing the photo selection for his country in the 2005 "Peace Corps Calendar" published by RPCVs of Madison, Wisconsin. RPCV Betsy Sergeant Snow, who submitted the photograph for the calendar, has published her reply. Read the stories and leave your comments.

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February 19, 2005: This Week's Top Stories NPCA Board positions are open for nomination 17 Feb Mike Tidwell on trial for climate action protest 17 Feb Katie Dyer is co-owner of Cadeaux du Monde 16 Feb Cyclone misses Tonga and Samoa PCVs 16 Feb Phil Hardberger in debate for Mayor of San Antonio 16 Feb Edmund Hull is Princeton Diplomat-In-Residence 16 Feb Bruce Greenlee is longtime friend of Latino community 15 Feb Mike Honda new vice chairman at DNC 15 Feb Jospeh Opala documents slave crossing from Sierra Leone 14 Feb Dear Dr. Brothers: Aren't PCVs Hippies? 14 Feb Joseph Lanning founded the World Education Fund 14 Feb Stanley Levine draws Marine and Peace Corps similarities 14 Feb Speaking Out: JFK envisioned millions of RPCVs 13 Feb Chris Aquino visits mother's homeland of Vietnam 12 Feb Is PCOL blocking users from posting messages? 12 Feb JFK Library opens Sargent Shriver Collection 1 Feb RPCV responds to Bulgaria Calendar concerns 28 Jan

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WWII participants became RPCVs Read about two RPCVs who participated in World War II in very different ways long before there was a Peace Corps. Retired Rear Adm. Francis J. Thomas (RPCV Fiji), a decorated hero of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, died Friday, Jan. 21, 2005 at 100. Mary Smeltzer (RPCV Botswana), 89, followed her Japanese students into WWII internment camps. We honor both RPCVs for their service.

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Ask Not As our country prepares for the inauguration of a President, we remember one of the greatest speeches of the 20th century and how his words inspired us. "And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man."

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