SuraYaUkimwi: Counseling sessions and external constraints

Its good to see my participation to some extent in one of the great tools that is being developed for something that will change peoples life. The chance to work with SuraYaKumwi has brought me to another level of experience to see how it can be used as a counseling tool. Three groups (each cosisting of about 10 students) from the Councelling faculty of the Tumaini University took the help of the platform to teach and counsel about the HIV/AIDS to three different schools. Me and Markus went to those sessions to assist them in a technical issues; and more important as an observer. My main objective of being there was to see how those groups will be arranging those events with the help of the tool and what feedback will be there from the students about the platform.

21^st May, 2009: Ruaha Secondary School, Ipogolo,

The first session with the school was made by group of ten students. According to them, they already had two other sessions at the school last weeks using black board and paper. They were using the tools now to put the stories as a case study to different aspects the disease and the transmission.

Location: Dinning Hall, (very big space) lots of external noise from the maintenance work being going on and also students got distracted from others coming and going out of the location very frequently.

Participants: about 150 students from form 2

Group Plan: The group were taking story of Mark as a case story. Then they ask the students to look for the questions given in the reflection sections of the tool. As a next step, the story was played and students were formed in group to discuss the questions, sometimes some part of the story were also replayed if they have any confusion. At the end, one of the student from each group were asked to put forward their thoughts about those questions to all others.

Event Log:

The event started with the introduction about the group and their purpose of being there

Then with some talk about the work they need to do and introduction to the guests,

Things that were lagging:

group did not introduce anything about the platform before they start.

What was different about this session than others?

This was a good opportunity to check the platform against the huge mass of students and random external noise at the same time. This is important because as a counseling tool, this is necessary for people in concerned stage to observe at the different settings. Also the tool will eventually be used in future in such kind of environment when it is used later as a tool for counseling purpose.

How can I improve the session next time?

• Room quite big and lots of echo: we are using computers to help students councel about some serious matter; t he information that provide utility to their life. Make sure that you only have enough enough space that you need. More space will create other disturbance and small space will create difficulty with the movement and afford.

• Sound system was not enough for the whole students to pay attention to: even if the location disadvantage barrier could be overcome with better sound system

• Picture from the projector was not clear enough to the students sitting at the back: arrangement could be made to make the room dark for the session and putting the background white for clarity.

• Disturbance due to students coming in and going out very frequently: strictly making a time for the entry of the students and asking them not to leave between session.

• Heavy noise due to hammering in the nearby maintenance room: inform the administration if there are any of such disturbances.

• Students were not clear about what activity they had to do: bearing a fact about above difficulties, it would have been better if each group were assigned one person who takes care of the discussion. This was also important in the way that although the students understand what to do, they were not able to discuss with each other (possibly due to lack of group discussion skills)

What was interesting?

One interesting point to note here was that even though we had sound and good picture used with projector, external environment played a vital role in the event; also the Animation was really attracting the attention of the students and sound is enabling them to discuss with the peers.