Day Eleven

A very interesting meeting this afternoon with Saw Than Lwin, the head of the HIV/AIDS home based counseling program. I was thinking we'd discuss the ways that BBP could enhance the counseling capacity of the HIV/AIDS workers and begin to address the trauma of the victims of HIV/AIDS. His focus, however, was on the basic economic and medical needs of these patients infected with the virus. He reported that the compliance and counseling had improved dramatically since World Vision had begun providing for the basic nutritional needs of this group. The role of psychologist and international aid worker are closely connected in this setting. I asked what he thought he'd need to make a difference and he thought $15,000 Baht per month ($375.00) to provide for medicine to combat the opportunistic infections that plague this population. An interesting addition to our growing list of worthy targets.

Spent three hours with Angela designing a training for camp social workers in October which could serve as a model for combining training and training of trainers. We'll see.

Flying out tomorrow morning so this is the last report of a very enlightening trip.