In the first phase of my project, Green and I, along with three local research assistants we hired, created a base map of Muhuru Bay using GPS devices and a free mapping software called QGIS.
This map was then used as a discussion platform for getting parents, teachers, youths, community leaders, and health workers to label and talk about areas of the community that were good and bad for youths during fifteen focus group sessions conducted during the second phase. Participants used red stickers to label places where kids “get into trouble” and green stickers to label “safe places” for them to spend time. Yellow stickers showed places where youths’ parents spend a lot of time, and blue stickers were used to indicate unsupervised areas.
After we gained a general understanding of the “bad” locations as expressed in Phase Two, the third phase of the project was dedicated to obtaining the exact geographic coordinates of these locations. Dr. Green and I traveled to eight schools and played “research games” with approximately eighty students (ten students at each school). In each game, teams used GPS compasses to navigate/race to points that were preprogrammed into the units. Using sophisticated camera phones, which attached the latitude and longitude of the photo locations to the photo metadata, team members logged and took pictures of places that fell into certain categories along the way. Categories included places where people have sex, places where people do drugs, places to have fun, places to buy things for one’s family, and important places in the community. When the teams finished, we discussed each photo and the category into which it fell. The team that had collected the most photos won! This research method was an effective way of gathering data about AIDS hotspots in a way that was fun for the research participants.
In the fourth phase of our project, Green and I interviewed over three hundred kids who had already been questioned by Dr. Puffer (in previous interviews) about their sexual behaviors and attitudes. They were asked to 1.) “draw a map of their community”, 2.) answer survey questions about their daily routines, and then, after answering questions about the places they frequent, the youths helped us 3.) locate and plot these points on a map of Muhuru Bay.
Finally, last but not least, in what constitutes the fifth phase of the project, community meetings were held to share findings and receive feedback.