November 29th, 2015 by Rachel | Tags: Peace Corps | No Comments »
Just before I joined the Peace Corps, I was warned that I will likely lose at least one person with whom I will have built a good rapport during the service. One of my biggest fears became a reality when I just learned last night that one of my most incredible work partners, Dorcas, just passed away suddenly from illness last Friday night. She was a very highly educated and bright woman who provided the most informative HIV trainings for Peace Corps Volunteers in the past year. She also worked closely with me on my malaria and HIV projects. My malaria workshops have been successful because of her. She invited me to her home a few times and even fed me lunch and provided me invaluable assistance in preparing for my malaria and HIV workshops. She would take the time to read my project proposals and give me feedback. In spite of her very busy schedule as she was a professor at a university and was working on her PhD, she even came to my host organization’s office on a few occasions to provide guidance on how to start a support group for people with disabilities living with HIV/AIDS. Even just two months ago, she helped me prepare my application for PEPFAR grant to acquire funding to do massive HIV testing for persons with disabilities. She guided me on the best approach on how to exactly do the testing event. She was just about get a PhD in South Africa. Even though she was already a grown adult with two young children, she still had so much bright future ahead of her. While she was already helping make a difference in the disability community (she already had been working very closely with many of my other work partners for many years), she was destined to make an even bigger impact on the world through community health education. She will be greatly missed by both the Peace Corps community and disability community. I’m still in shock and it does not seem to real to the point that I wanted to make sure I was mishearing the news and I asked my counterpart, “Is this true?” and “Are we talking about this same person who we know?”
Dorcas is presenting at an HIV training.
