Millions (of HIV tests) at a time

Which brings me to my third and final project, the Health Communication Partnership (HCP), where I continue to provide technical assistance to its many programs: HIV counseling and testing, antiretroviral therapy, TB/HIV, medical male circumcision, HIV/AIDS-related stigma, family planning, and youth sexual and reproductive health.

I’ve gotten probably a little too jazzed up about our HIV counseling and testing program lately…this thing has been dragging on for ages and aaaaages while we try and make all the right political moves, but we’re finally getting close to having stakeholder approval of the strategy. It may not sound like much, but this prolonged Ministry of Health and stakeholder endorsement will be a huuuge milestone. Then it’s just a matter of developing the best national couples HIV counseling and testing campaign the world has ever seen. Wink.

And so, that’s my three-part work update. How we ever decided I would be on three projects, I do not recall (3 and 1/3, really…AFFORD/UHMG still hasn’t let me entirely off the hook). My to do list is miles long, I have an unprecedented number of unread emails, I've added more colleague/partner contact numbers to my phone in the last few weeks than I did in all of 2008, my brain is working overtime…and I can’t seem to stop volunteering for other things because it's all just so damn interesting. We have a full-day "time management" seminar at HCP today. I think I need to ask Cheryl for permission to skip out.

It really isn’t the best use of my time :-p