Community Events Spotlight HIV/AIDS Education

 VHW brings communities together through sports tournament for public health education

Kigutu, Burundi –Village Health Works, an American non-profit organization based in rural, Burundi, has organized a World AIDS Day tournament. Given countrywide antiretroviral drug shortages and climbing infection rates, Village Health Works is dedicated to leveraging its community-based model to disseminate preventative health messages. 

Spanning four weeks and consisting of volleyball and soccer teams across the region, the tournament’s health messages reached an estimated 2,500 community members.

Each match featured the Village Health Works girls dance troupe and the youth Igoma drummers of Kigutu; two youth impact programs that promote cultural pride, group skills and health awareness.  Performances included messaging about the effect of HIV/AIDS on communities and how to prevent transmission. Village Health Works clinical staff attended each match to provide more detailed HIV/AIDS prevention messages during half time and to answer questions posed by the community.

This is Village Health Works’ second annual World Aids Day Tournament.

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Village Health Works’ is a community-driven partnership, responding to the input and needs of those it serves, and collaborates with supporters around the world to deliver health care and programs in a compassionate, dignified environment in one of the poorest countries in the world. 

In 2009, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tracy Kidder published Strength in What Remains, which became a New York Times bestseller. The book is the story of VHW’s founder, his escape from the war-torn east African nation of Burundi, and his incredible journey to the United States, where he thrives at Columbia University, Harvard University and Dartmouth College. 

VHW is a New York-based 501(c) 3 with operations in Burundi. VHW serves a catchment area of more than 200,000, providing community-driven health care, education and community development programs. VHW’s board includes Partners In Health founder Paul Farmer, author Tracy Kidder, and Kayak.com founder Paul English. 

For more information visit villagehealthworks.org.

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