One of the success stories of the power and reach of citizen media in Africa is definitely The Nata Village Blog. It is a blog from Nata village in Botswana. Nata is a village of about 5000 people located on the edge of the Makgadikgadi Pans, the largest salt pan in the world. The blog is a tool in the fight against the devastating effects of HIV/AIDS in Nata village. It features people living with AIDS, youth groups, clinic staff and social workers and give visitors an inside look at how people live in an African village. It is also used for fundraising. Unfortunately, HIV/AIDS is having a devastating effect on the people of this small village. Botswana has the second highest HIV infection rate in Africa. The current rate of infection is 37% nationally and Nata's rate of infection is even higher. The pandemic has left Nata with over 400 orphans. Currently, nearly 50% of all pregnant women in Nata are HIV positive. Thankfully, Botswana has free Anti-Retroviral Therapy available for those with low CD4 (t-cell) counts. We also have a Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission program that has reduced the rate of infection from mother to child to about 5%. This website is dedicated to the people of Nata who despite enormous losses and challenges still have the courage and determination to fight the ravages of this pandemic. In the beginning Nata village had no blog, until…: The Nata Blog was born as a result of a world traveler, Jon Rawlinson, passing through Nata on the way to the Okavango Delta. The tour books referred to Nata as nothing more than a dust hole and he had no intention of spending any time there. But, as coincidence would have it, he met a Peace Corps Volunteer named Melody Jenkins who is working as an HIV/AIDS educator and community capacity builder. Jon was interested in seeing more than the tourist destinations of Africa and wanted to learn more about the impact of HIV/AIDS on Botswana. After just one night of meeting the locals and hearing first hand accounts of the struggle to control the spread of the disease, Jon was hooked and wanted to help. He has since been back to Nata twice and has been introduced to the Kgosi (chief) and most of the professionals working to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS. Nata will benefit from the fact that our world traveler is also a professional producer and editor as well as a website designer. Jon and Melody worked on a documentary about HIV/AIDS in Nata in hopes of bringing the story of Nata to the world. Jon discovered an incredible village filled with the beautiful Mokolane Palm trees lining the Nata River. Unlike most tourists, Jon wanted to do more than just snap a few photos of elephants and giraffes and return home. He wanted to make a difference and offered to design and administer this website. After much discussion and the frustration of donations going to large organizations that rarely get to those that really need it, Jon and Melody decided to try and help the people of Nata with this website The posts on the blog are written by Melody Jenkins, a U.S. peace corps volunteer, Martha Ramaditse, a native of Nata and Mr. Seloma Tiro, the Chairman of the Nata AIDS and Orphan Trust which manages the funds generated from this website. Mr. Tiro has played a critical role in the success on the blog: This website would not have been possible without his generosity. Since the inception of the website, Mr. Tiro has loaned Martha and Melody his laptop computer for blogging, paid for all calls to access the internet and allowed us to use his server. He has all but turned over his own private office to us. At the birth of this website there were only 3 people in the village with internet access. Mr. Tiro became a co-founder of this website as it would not have been possible without him. Mr. Tiro is a co-owner of the natavillage.org domain and Nata village blog. The blog was designed and is administered by John Rawlinson. Recently, the Nata Village blog won the Peace Corps Information and Technology Contest: Back in January, we entered the Peace Corps Information and Technology Contest. We learned in June that we were one of 9 finalists. It was just announced that we are one of the top three winners named in the contest. The three winners will be featured in the December issue of Worldview Magazine and the projects will be featured in Peace Corps internal and external publications. We've been told that we will also be featured in the Peace Corps Times. We want to congratulate the other winners Heidi Joseph in Zambia and Nicholas Cabiati and Daniel Schier in Senegal. We think it's pretty cool that all three winners are working on the African continent. It just shows that technology is available here and growing everyday.