Do you believe?

Winning the battle Last month in one of our Peer Education outreaches sessions in one of the schools that we work with, I got really challenged by one of the youth participating in the session. We were talking about stigma and discrimination attached to HIV as a result of the misconceptions surrounding the illness. While I was busy facilitating this young girl, Shirley about 13 years raised her hand, and said “Mr. Masi, do you really believe in the possibility of having an HIV/AIDS free world?” I tried as much as I could to give her an affirmative answer without being conservative, but still I got really challenged. Then I quickly thought of the words that were said by Melinda Gates at the official opening of the xvi international AIDS Conference in Toronto in 2006. She said,

“Ending AIDS will not be the success of one great scientist, one great community worker, or one great leader; it will be an accomplishment of the whole human family working together for one another.”

With these words, I could see that young girl getting satisfied with my answer and it gave me the courage to further unpack Melinda’s words. Surprisingly most students in that session believed that it is stigma and discrimination attached to HIV/AIDS that we have to fight in order to have an HIV free world. Then last week, we had an open discussion between mothers and young girls about sex, sexuality, relationships and Sexually Transmitted infections including HIV.

The interesting part of these discussions for me was to see mothers pointing fingers and blaming the girls and the girls also blaming their mothers. But one particular lady caught my attention, she is a social worker and a counselor by profession, and at work she receives young girls and boys for counseling and she openly discusses issues around safe sex and HIV/AIDS with them, but when she gets home, she can not do the same with her daughters and son as she considers herself a mother at home and a counselor at work. But the question that I asked myself was who then should discuss with her children, if she can not do it.

From these discussions, I then realized that it is the fear of stigma and deep rooted discrimination that makes us as young people less likely to adopt preventative strategies such as using condoms, adhering to treatment and even disclosing our HIV status to our loved ones. And quoting Melinda Gates once again,

“The simple fact is that HIV is transmitted through activities that society finds difficult to discuss — activities that are infused with stigma — and that stigma has made AIDS much harder to fight.. Stigma is cruel. It is also irrational. Stigma makes it easier for political leaders to stand in the way of saving lives. In some countries with widespread AIDS epidemics, leaders have declared the distribution of condoms immoral, ineffective, or both. This is a serious obstacle to ending AIDS”.

I have seen billboards and television advertisements with messages like “AIDS kills”, and these are messages that have ignited and influenced misconceptions surrounding HIV/AIDS.

Through such messages people have come to believe that one you are HIV positive you are as good as dead. But is it true that when you are HIV positive you are dead? NO! BIG NO! And should we treat a person differently because he/she is HIV positive? NO! BIG NO! Shirley’s question challenged me to look closely at myself and the work that I do with youths in my community around HIV education and awareness creation, so I said to Shirley. Yes of course, I do believe in the possibility of having an HIV-free world.

How would you answer this question, more over it is being asked by a 13 year old child like Shirley? I guess the question is more about what are you doing to help the world fight HIV/AIDS? What would you tell your grand children tomorrow when they ask you “What did you do when a lot of people died from HIV/AIDS?” would you tell them you did nothing?