The Mekelle Boarding School for the blind is really no different from any other teaching institution in Ethiopia run on meager funds. Home to visually impaired students, this school has been educating children from pre-school up to 4^th grade since 1993. Berhan GebreMariam, a woman in her early forties has been teaching here since 2004. After being trained as a Betengna discussion group facilitator and facilitating a few sessions, she decided to expand her discussion group by including older visually impaired students from outside the school in the group.

Berhan admits that she sometimes gets stuck on questions the students ask her after listening to Betengna. "They ask all sorts of questions," she told me as she flipped through notes she keeps during her discussions with the students, "sometimes about mother to child transmission through breast milk, condoms, anything really. What makes it difficult to answer their questions confidently is how intently they ask [their questions], you feel like no answer can satisfy them."

A new world unveiled itself the more I spoke to Berhan, a world where visually impaired children suffer not only from a disability but also from barriers that have been overcome in most developed countries, like tailored infrastructure for those disabled in many different ways, or access to (up-to-date) information through different mediums. Berhan tells me that the only books they have in Braille are biblical texts purchased the previous year. They have an embosser to create texts in Braille with but no money to pay for a typist. As she reveals this, I began to understand the high value such a group would place on radio programs such as Betengna.

Betengna establishes these discussion groups so that participants can familiarize themselves with diarists' stories and so that they begin to think about their own personal situations through relating to the diarists. These discussion groups also provide a platform for sharing ideas about the implications of living in a community affected by HIV and AIDS, for upholding principles about reduction of stigma and for increasing participants' awareness about health services available to them. In Berhan's group, they talk about much more than this.

Berhan's group participated in weekly group discussion for over 4 months. They used whatever new information they gained from Betengna in skits and poetry readings they present to the rest of the school on Mondays and Fridays. I felt a huge surge of responsibility to know they use Betengna as their sole source of research, information, and means of educating their schoolmates. "There are no materials in Braille about HIV, except for what we teachers tell them and what they hear outside. Sometimes what they hear outside needs correction." Berhan emphasizes in a matter of fact way.

Some of the students at the Mekelle Boarding school for the Blind are sexually active or at the very least curious, an observation Berhan makes based on some of the questions they ask her. "They sometimes ask me how they can tell which condom size is the right one for them. Having never seen condoms, they don't know that all condoms are standard sized, but I also worry about what it means in terms of how sexually active they are and how prepared they are for it." Her worries are not misplaced, since there have already been reports of teen pregnancies on their campus.

Meeting the Participants

Berhan led me outside to a small shade by an old tree and there, Tsige, Emebet, GebreMichael and Kidan were sitting. All four of them tell me they enjoy playing the kirar during their music classes. They also talked to me about the different episodes they heard on Betengna. They spoke of one of the diarists, Hiwot Mamo, as though they knew her personally. "I was so angry with her when she had a second child despite the fact that her first child just died because she breastfed her," Kidan says to me, "but it was a relief to know her new baby tested negative." Emebet adds that she was relieved when Hiwot's second husband tested negative as well.  GebreMichael tells me he was worried when Hiwot's second husband took her older son from her first marriage for an HIV test. "It was such an unfair deal for him". Tsige, the quiet one of the group, quietly nods her head in agreement with GebreMichael.

Because Tigrigna is their first language, I ask them how they managed since the programs they'd been listening to were in Amharic. "Berhan explained things that we didn't understand and all our discussions were in Tigrigna so it wasn't a huge problem," GebreMichael assured me. Still, they broke out in smiles when I told them their next discussion guide was being prepared in Tigrigna.

As our conversation ended and I prepared to leave, I thanked them all and asked them if they had any questions for me.  GebreMichael shyly asked if he and his friends would get certificates of recognition for the activities they have been doing and I reassured him that they definitely would. I am convinced, however, that a certificate cannot adequately acknowledge the wonderful work they are doing and will no doubt continue to. With all my heart, I hope they continue with these activities and more great Betengna experiences come out of the Mekelle School for the Blind.