Events

On March 23-24, 2005 USAID/Benin Mission Director Rudolph Thomas traveled to the interior of Benin to visit two USAID-funded health activities implemented by USAID partners Population Services International.

The two-day visit provided the Director and the Family Health Team staff a chance to see their partners in action, and to observe health-related activities, give feedback to partners and talk with Beninese beneficiaries.

In Abomey, Director Thomas and his staff attended a variety of interpersonal communication activities being implementing by Population Services International (PSI) as part of the Integrated Social Marketing Project. This project addresses a wide range of health issues including HIV/AIDS, family planning, malaria prevention, and diarrhea disease management.

Director Thomas attended a number of HIV/AIDS prevention activities conducted by the PSI communications team targeting high risk groups. Activities included the interactive game, "Brushfire", conducted with transportation workers to highlight the risks of HIV/AIDS transmission, as well as an interpersonal communication session with out-of-school young girls focusing on abstinence and delayed sexual debut. The Director also took the opportunity to engage with various shopkeepers selling the project's socially marketed products, including Prudence Plus condoms and Orasel oral rehydration salts.

The USAID team also attended a PSI family planning educational session with a group of women visiting one of Abomey's pre-natal clinics. On the way to Lokossa, the Director and the Family Health Team stopped in Djrègbé to visit one of the health clinics participating in PSI's insecticide-treated mosquito net program. The team met with the clinic staff to discuss the project's health impact, and then sat in on a malaria awareness-raising session with a group of mothers and their newborns as part of a comprehensive malaria prevention strategy.

On August 27, 2004, USAID/Benin Mission Director, Rudolph Thomas presented Benin Minister of Primary and Secondary Education, Rafiatou Karim, a USAID sponsored set of the 90,000 French textbooks and 90,000 math textbooks for grade six school children during an official ceremony organized in Cotonou, Benin. This set represents the last of a total of 1,740,000 textbooks and 1,340,000 workbooks that USAID helped Benin develop and print.

This ceremony and the 2004-2005 school year marked the final phase in the extension process of the new curriculum to all the primary schools of Benin.

Despite this achievement, USAID recognizes that Benin's primary education sector is confronted with major systemic difficulties that need to be dealt with effectively. USAID is committed to assisting Benin in the reform of its primary education program. USAID will ardently continue to contribute to the Government of Benin's efforts to make the primary education sector a quality base for sustainable development.

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