Easy as ABC?

Asian pop superstar CoCo Lee interviews Kami from Sesame Street about the hope for kids battling stigma

Youth meet the leaders

Despite receiving scant mention in the opening speeches by luminaries such as UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, young people made sure they were visible throughout the week and demanded they play an important role in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

“We would like youth to be involved in policies the government is making, especially in education,” says conference Youth Coordinator, Sujima Viravaidya. “They should listen to the voice and ideas of youth before they decide what to do, especially with youth education on HIV/AIDS. There’s no education on HIV/AIDS that is working. Why is that? We have to work on a solution together if we really want to solve the problem of HIV.”

Sujima Viravaidya addresses her young comrades

Indeed, the issue of access to education was a central theme of the conference and was debated vigorously by people with a wide range of views and attitudes. Yet it was young people who seemed to leave the most indelible impression. Many spoke frankly and directly about understanding their needs as well as the importance of openness. Whilst adults wrangled with each other in adjacent rooms, the young people who took part in seminars or press conferences impressed with the clarity of their arguments, without recourse to ideology or rhetoric. Their dose of realism and respect was refreshing – if only they had a drug for that!

Dabesaki Mac-Ikemenjima from ‘Students Without Borders’

With an estimated 12 million young people worldwide affected by HIV/AIDS, it is not difficult to see why youth are at the front line in the battle. If they are empowered by quality education, the rate of new infections could well decrease radically and there would be renewed hope for eradicating the disease. Not only that, but youth are the torchbearers for the next generation of leaders and, if we listen to them now, there will be fewer problems in future. This was the argument put forward by Dabesaki Mac-Ikemenjima, a young Nigerian from the organisation ‘Students Without Borders’.

“Young people must not just be rhetorical figures within the papers from our policy makers,” he asserted. “We must be active allies in the solution to economic, social, educational, cultural and health problems.”

As he spoke, it was clear that many young people in the audience were connecting. After all, they had come to the conference because they cared and wanted to make a difference. Dabeski showed real leadership and talked to them about why their active involvement was so crucial. “We are the stakeholders,” he proclaimed, “and we have to act now. In the fight against HIV/AIDS, the youth hold today and tomorrow.”

This was not empty rhetoric but part of a speech which included sensible solutions to some of the more difficult problems associated with the disease. He spoke, for example, of how young people could get involved at a number of levels including personal, family, school and community through to national and international events.

He also spoke about openness being key to preventing further spread of the disease. This point was echoed by speakers at an Asian Youth Forum who, despite having limited English skills, clearly conveyed a need for cultural understanding within their communities.

“We need to change the culture,” said Chaowarith Dangsaon, a young AIDS volunteer from Chiang Mai. “It’s very difficult for young people to talk openly to their parents about sex. The right attitude is very important if we are to prevent people from getting HIV/AIDS.”

Another speaker, Vieng Akhone from Vietnam, complained that sexual health education from adults was usually rigid and inadequate. “Opening up is the key to prevention,” he said. “We sometimes get a lecture but there is no participation. Children go to sleep if they get lectured.”

The answer, according to Chawarith, is to bring young adults into schools specifically to teach students about sex and diseases associated with it. “Young people can go into schools but not act like a teacher,” he says. “They will be more like friends and the students will talk and learn more.”

One of the more disappointing revelations to come out of the conference was that a cure for the HIV/AIDS virus is nowhere in sight. However, education was widely touted as a ‘social vaccine’ against the virus and one that could be effective if communities got their acts together.

The ‘Bangkok Youth Force’, a group of young conference delegates representing youth from all over the world, had much to say on the subject. At their press conference, each member of the panel had a story to tell and, importantly, had come to make sure the leaders understood how to address youth in a positive and effective way, instead of patronising them and leaving them out of the loop.

The session was chaired by famous Asian pop superstar CoCo Lee. She began the press conference by chatting with HIV positive ‘Kami’ who had come all the way from Takalani Sesame (Sesame Street) in South Africa. Readers may recognise Sesame Street as being a famous children’s television programme and home of the famous Muppets, so Kami was something of a spectacle.

The character told the assembled press that she had been having a hard time at school because the other children thought they might get sick if they played with her. “It made me very sad because I wanted them to know that they could not get sick just from being my friends,” said the fluffy creature. “I convinced them with the help of my other friends. They all came with me to school and told the children that they can’t catch HIV from by playing with me or sharing their food with me. Well, after that, the children weren’t frightened anymore and some of them even became my good friends and that makes me really happy.”

Henry Lyumboya from Uganda

Back in the real world, Lyumboya Henry, 24, from Uganda was tested HIV positive a few years ago and recently had the privilege of interviewing Nelson Mandela for an MTV special on the disease. Bright, alert and a potent orator, Henry told the story about how he had watched his father and brother die from AIDS. “After the death of my father, my mother gave me a lot of support,” he said. “She told me that we are going to go through a hard life but we need to stay firm and strong. It’s been a long journey. Nelson Mandela is a great man, and I learned a lot from him. He told me that ‘stigma can kill you even faster than the disease. Stigma is one of the means through which HIV can spread’.”

Learning post asked Henry and others on the panel how education could help fight the stigma. “We should talk to the students in schools about HIV/AIDS,” replied Henry. “I’ll give you an example of what has worked partly in Uganda. We talk about the realities, we talk about sex, we talk about HIV/AIDS. Yes, we respect our cultures but it is only if people are informed about HIV prevention and treatment that a young person can make an informed decision. Also, in our school curriculum, we have life skills education. This empowers young people with skills on deciding for themselves.”

Indeed, many at the conference stressed the need for accurate and appropriate information. Bangkok Youth panelist, Carlos Martel, a 23 year-old UN volunteer from Honduras, warned about the dangers of misinformation. “All the information about sexual health in my country is directed towards sexual abstinence,” he said. “Abstinence has to be an option, not an order. I think that children must know about all the methods that we have to prevent any disease like HIV or STD’s. There are organisations, which are very strong in my country, who say condoms are not effective. They say you have to remain a virgin or abstain from sex, that it is the better way. Yes, I think it is one of the ways but is not enough. Young people want to explore their sexuality because we are sexual human beings. They cannot keep denying us the human right to information about all the methods we have to protect ourselves. Otherwise we are not going to be able to make the right choices.”

CoCo Lee also had her view. “Youth from the age 15-24 are at the highest risk because they lack the right information and education,” she told learning post. “In Asia it’s a taboo to talk about sex, so in school they do not have sex education and I think that’s a crucial point – students need to have that information. A lot of young kids feel that ‘it’s not gonna happen to me’, so they engage in risky sexual behaviour. Once they understand HIV/AIDS, they will have the power to say ‘no, I’m not ready for this’ or to ask their partner to be tested. We have to encourage kids to change their sexual behaviour.”

Protestors outside the conference

Whilst empowering youth with the right information will make a substantial difference in the fight against HIV/AIDS, gender roles are also a priority, especially in underdeveloped countries where men are traditionally the power holders and the women subservient. “I think it’s time to break out of the culture of silence,” says Executive Director of UNIFEM (the UN’s development fund for women). “There has been a wall of silence about the issue of women’s sexuality and all sexuality in general. I think that, for the first time, we have to break the taboos of sexuality. We have to bring down the stigma and hold a major public campaign so that there is a culture of being comfortable with various issues and knowledge. Here, the use of media as a tool of education is very important.

“There also needs to be a change in the status of women. More and more women are being infected, often without even knowing it. In this case, gender inequality is a killer, it is fatal. So we need to empower women to be economically independent and to have higher social status. This disease thrives where you have inequality, poverty, violence, where you have power differentials and this, in a sense, is what needs to be addressed.

I think the issue before us is that the present system of leadership and of behaviour, and of norms and standards, it not helping us to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS. We need to change that so there’s no new infection. We should ensure a future for the young which is AIDS-free for both boys as well as girls. And this is one of the areas where you need to bring the boys and men in and make them very engaged.”

Few would argue against the notion that quality education is a valuable tool in fighting the disease. Yet there was much debate at the conference as to exactly what form that education should take.

The Bush administration in the United States has controversially introduced an advocacy strategy called ‘ABC’ in which ‘Abstinence’, ‘Being faithful’ and ‘Correct use of Condoms’ are seen as the three appropriate modes of behaviour for reducing the risk of contracting HIV/AIDS. Some at the conference criticised the strategy as being too narrow, particularly since the administration appears to favour abstinence until marriage above the other two ‘ideals’. This, detractors argue, does not translate realistically to some of the high-risk groups such as powerless women in patriarchal societies or the homosexual community. Yet US officials in favour of this policy defended their position, saying that all three are of equal importance.

An alternative is ‘CNN’ – an acronym for Condoms, clean Needles and Negotiating skills’. This, proponents say, has a more down-to-earth approach as it takes account of today’s harsh realities instead of being loaded with ideology. Critics point out, however, that ‘CNN’ has had little success in some African countries.

It seems that this debate could go on for quite some time. Many, however, favour a balance between the two policies, suggesting that both have merits when used correctly. Clearly, either is better than virtually nothing at all – a dangerous policy that remains in some of the worst-hit countries.

Reaching as many young people as possible with the message is another issue. Much was made of the need for appropriate sex education in schools and access to poor communities by networking groups. It also seems that the media are realising the crucial impact they can make as far as education is concerned. MTV, for instance, declared at the conference that they would radically increase output of their HIV/AIDS-related public announcements, which, they claim, could reach almost 90% of young people around the world.

Whatever the message and however it hits home, the urgency of clear, accurate education with regards to the prevention of HIV/AIDS is now more pressing than ever. And, as with medical treatment, the slogan for the XV International AIDS Conference applies to the ‘social vaccine’ too – Access for All.