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Talking about HIV/AIDS
Negombo, Sri Lanka – On Thursday, Youth Summit participants had a lot of work ahead of them. In the morning, they worked on a series of recommendations for policy makers based on sexual and reproductive health problems they had identified earlier in the week. “This could be one of the most important things we do all week,” one participant told his group. “Some of the people who see these recommendation may take action.”
In the afternoon, they worked in small groups on projects: Young writers were busily typing up interviews, stories and reflections.
The games group seemed to be devising a version of musical chairs in which everyone ran from their seats when the leader said, “Sex.”
One of the drama groups was finalizing a script. “The narrator says: And when the king was sure that everyone in his kingdom was happy, he went home. ”
One group was developing a mockup of a brochure with the headline, “Not sure if you have HIV?”
HIV/AIDS prevention has emerged as an issue in many of the group discussions. Prevalence varies widely among the seven countries represented. In several, strong prohibitions against promiscuity have kept the disease largely at bay. In a few others, HIV is still contained mainly within certain groups. In Cambodia, the disease has become a major nationwide epidemic.
For Asia as a whole the challenge is to keep prevalence low before it spreads explosively throughout region, which represents half of the world’s population. HIV prevention is a priority for all of the RHIYA projects, and all of the young people at the summit were well-informed about the disease and national efforts to prevent it.
For many the challenge is to make the threat of HIV/AIDS seem sufficiently urgent to young people so they will actually change their sexual behaviours.
“The young people are afraid of HIV,” said Moeun Channa, a 21-year-old peer educator from Cambodia. “They know that there is no medicine to cure it, but still they have sex without condoms.”
Chinthana Somkhane, 25, is from a small agricultural village in Lao PDR. Many of the people she works with don’t realize they could be at risk for the disease. She uses case studies to help them understand the seriousness of the problem, but its solution is complicated by the difficulty people have in getting access to condoms or services.
Shankar Nepali, 19, of Nepal, seemed confident that he is making a difference in the border communities where he works. “Several of my peers have told me they are suffering from sexually transmitted diseases. I tell them where they can go for treatment. I give them condoms and demonstrations. I tell them about sexual reproductive health. When I meet with my peers, they can change their behaviors.”
For more information contact:
Thierry Lucas: tlucas@unfpa.org
Galanne Deressa: deressa@unfpa.org
This section was posted on 11 November 2004.
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