Local Active Youth

In the small village of Dete, we ran across a very inspirational group of young people. These local African youth are very concerned about the increasing spread of the HIV/AIDS virus. They are also interested in providing young people in the surrounding area with a place to congregate and participate in positive activities. In order to combat the lack of information on HIV/AIDS, these active youths have created a drama,music,dance troupe that is entirely focused on educating the local public on such topics as abstinence, safe sex, domestic violence, the increasing ophan population, and AIDS/HIV awareness. They do this through traditional music and dance, and through short theatre productions. At this time, they don't have a building to meet in , and are practicing outside. They hope to someday have a community youth/sports center and the funds to travel to surrounding communities with their presentation, so that their message can be spread. They are also dreaming big, and would also love to travel internationally with their traditional music and dance, and share their culture, traditions, and arts with the world, as well as educate the world on the challenges facing Zimbabwe. Jessica and I were so impressed with their enthusiasm and eager initiative that we held a seminar on grant writing and finding international funding. They were so eager to practice what we taught them, that they wrote a short project proposal the next day and asked us to come look at it and help them improve on it the following day!! Talk about self-motivated!! We hope to send them more information so that they can locate some international funding to get them started on their commendable quest to make a positive difference, not only in their community , but the world! They even tried to teach us some of their dances. Poor guys. They just wouldn't take our word for it, that white people really have no rhythm. They had to learn the hard way. But we sure had a lot of fun making complete fools of ourselves!