RAP - Rhenish AIDS program - Rehoboth, Namibia

I've been trying to write up something on each of the potential partners we will be visiting. In Rehoboth, Namibia, we will be meeting with Johnathan Van Wyk who heads up The Rhenish AIDS Program (RAP). This is from an e-mail response early in our conversations.

Dear Mr. Harter

We here at RAP are very excited about your visit to Rehoboth. We would like to propose the following for your visit:

1. Visits to rural areas where we are involved in community upliftment programs, eg. kindergardens(Chreche), hostels, gardens.

2. Roundtable meeting with you to plan future cooperation between RAP and RockHarbor.

We would appreciate it if you could consider us as well in your efforts to gather some educational stuff and clothing. We are now in the preparation phase of starting an after school care centre where children can come study, do home work, and read. Educational stuff especially for kindergardens ( 5 - 7 years old) will be highly appreciated.

Looking forward to see you in July.

Regards,
Jonathan Van Wyk

These are answers to our general questions I thought were relevant.

What are the biggest needs?
Answer: i) Transport; ii) Human resources; iii) financial support.

What other churches or groups are they working with?
Answer: We work Catholic Aids Action, CAFO, Evangelical Lutheran Church Aids Program (ELCAP).

What is the youngest age we could bring?
Answer: To be involved in programs we would prefer 16 years and older.

What is the church like in their community?
Answer: The Rhenish Church is more like the Lutheran church

What is your vision?
Answer: The vision of RAP is: "To help develop a healthy generation free of HIV/AIDS and other Sexual Transmitted Diseases through helping people to make positive decisions."

Would it be a good fit for Rock Harbor? Why or Why not?
Answer: It depends on what the mission of Rock Harbor is. We are open to any organisation/group/church who wants to combine forces with us in the fight against HIV/AIDS and to do community work in order to uplift our communities.

We will be working with Johnathan and RAP on July 5th and 6th.

Our hearts are with this location and we would like most of all be able to continue working in this community. Over the past three or four years of trips to Rehoboth we have all found a connection here and hope that we can maintain our ties to this place and build upon work that we have already done. Those hopes are dependent on finding a long term partner where ever we go and it has been very hard for us to find an organization working in this location. All the more reason for us to want to work here since there is so much need and so few resources.