Voluntary Work
Voluntary Experience
Remmy's voluntary work started off in 2004 when he volunteered as a peer educator in Zambia's rural areas with an organisation called Students Partnership Worldwide.
- Remmy worked in Mungule area of Chibombo district at poor school called Muchenje. for the next 8 months, Remmy together with his colleague was going to become p art of this Lenje community. Eating their food, drinking there water and speaking their language. formally, Remmy conducted HIV and Life skills lessons in classes for grades 5 to 9. informally, he became a role model for the community youth and helped them aspire for more and live a positive life.
Remmy has respect for SPW Zambia for the foundation the organsisation laid in him, which ignited his passion for young people and HIV response in particular. A volunteer was born, a youth empowered!
Remmy also volunteered with Community Youth Mobilisation (CYM) Zambia. CYM is an indigenous community-based, non-profit organisation that provides health promotion, education and advocacy for rural young people infected and affected by HIV/AIDS.
At CYM, Remmy helped design a Community HIV and AIDS training manual which peer educators were using in their communities. CYM gave Remmy the rich experience of dealing with community problems. Its approach of training Community Based Volunteers from their respective communities gave Remmy the skills of mobilizing community.
Working with these two organisations, Remmy's rural experience was built, and now he was ready to work in urban areas.
From 2006 onwards, Remmy's voluntary experience included working in shanty communities of Lusaka city with The University of Zambia Service Learning project based at the Psychology department. Remmy Volunteered for 2 months apiece in both 2006 and 2007. Here he worked with children orphaned to HIV and AIDS. He spent most of the time building relationships with them to have hope for a positive future. As a university student then, remmy was able to set himself as a role model and worked alongside trained counselors who would deal with psychological needs of these children.
While doing his undergraduate studies, Remmy became a model of inspiration in the HIV and AIDS Response. He started with volunteering for the whole year of 2007 for a peer education project in four universities, Zambia, Namibia and the Western cape in South Africa (ZAMANAWE). He saw the need for social chnage among students and he was proactive in designing programmes for outreach.He was later selected alongside 3 others to represent the universityat a training in Namibia on Gender. During this period, Remmy utilised his talentin Drama and popular theatre that he introducing new and entertaining ways of reaching young people. the famous one was Dance Drama which he taught others in namibia too and has shared it since then in South Africa, Switzerland and India.
Visits and International Trips
Projects
Under the umbrella of the University Of Zambia HIV and AIDS response Office Remmy co-founded the Men n' Gender Project with his friend and colleague Bob Munyati in 2008. The project worked with male students and trained 86 of them to HIV and Gender (HaG) Peer educators. these students were further sent into communities in Lusaka to carry out training workshops with community peer educators in collaboration with the Christian Children's Fund (CCF) Zambia Head office. The project aims at implementing gender transformative programmes that question social vices such as Violence Against Women.
The Men n' Gender initial project was funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).
Campus Webb Radio Drama
Working with the UNZA HIV Response office and the Zambia National AIDS Network, Remmy and his 2 colleagues (Bob and Kakoma)designed and scripted a radio drama called campus webb.Remmy further directed the drama with a cast of 14 young people. The play portrayed how HIV is links different people on a university or college campus and how it passes from one person to another. Two editions of the play were done in 2008 and 2009.
AB Student Leadership Program
Abstinence Be faithful student program was another project that Remmy was part of under the UNZA HIV Response Office. The program aimed at reaching out to high school and college students with the message of Abstinence and being Faithful. For colleges, condoms were alse included.This was a leadership program because it used UNZA students as role models for their peers in different learning institutions. Remmy led 100s of his fellow students on trips to other provinces.
Creative Activities
Spending close to 5 years at the University of Zambia compelled Remmy to step up his creativity in reaching young people. he worked closely with different students and teams, friends and colleagues to learn and create new concepts and approaches.
Visit the Boarding House 2008 campaign
Remmy designed a campaign to reach students who resided off campus in boarding houses with interesting messages around HIV. To get attention from many, he proposed the theme Sex positions; which hypothetically refered to ones position about sex before marriage. The theme alone drew hundreds of students to the activities such that the UNZA HIV Response decided to repeat the activity on campus.
Boy/Girl Talks
Drawn from the previous campaign, an on campus one was initiated. During the campus outreach the campaign was called 'Boy/Girl Talks; where female peer educators went to speak with male students in the hostels and and likewise the male peer educators spoke to female students about sex and HIV.
Blind View
This was a poetry night that Remmy and his colleague Bob coined to bring together students who wanted to share their thoughts around HIV in the form of Poetry.
Couples Nite
This was an activity that drew students who were in relationships on campus to come with their partners and discuss gender issues that affect them. Remmy used his experience from Counseling to take a hypothetical wal with his peers around such issues. Both males and females opened up on what they think about gender and how gender consideration can foster a healthy relationship. Some issues discussed included, date rape, men's violence and gender equality
Sexual Harassment Jingles
Remmy designed jingles on Sexual harasment which played for weeks on UNZA Radio. He scripted and directed these jingles which included students and staff from the university. Some jingles included real life stories of people who have been harassed before.
