Blantyre, Malawi – X DREAM Pan-African formation course starts
On 1 March, the X DREAM Pan-African formation course started in Blantyre. It is a new course for English-speaking participants. Its objective is to meet needs arising from prospects of expansion planned in some Anglophone countries in recent months. The aim is also to continue responding to the demand for formation about AIDS posed by the world of African health care.
Around 100 participants are attending the course, coming from all the Anglophone countries where DREAM is present (Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya, Nigeria), as well as Lesotho. Religious sisters from Kenya are there in large numbers, making for a significant presence. In fact, many congregations have shown considerable interest in the possibility of applying the diagnostic-therapeutic protocols of DREAM to their respective health centres, which are situated in the huge slums that make up the suburbs of Nairobi.
A practice applied in the latest Pan-African courses has been to hold a course specifically for campaigners at the same time as that for doctors, nurses, coordinators and so on, is taking place.
However there is a novelty this year: the 35 campaigners taking part come from four African countries (Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya, Nigeria) and they will be addressed by DREAM lecturers with the help of Mozambican campaigners. Thus, this will be the first Pan-African formation course for campaigners, which means that this course is also opening up to take on a wider, continental dimension.