Centralised HIV messaging has become the ‘in thing” to combat HIV infection, apart from the more generalised ABC (abstain, be faithful and condomise) formula.
Swaziland has recently launched two sets of centralised messaging, one emphasizes the need for life, the other focuses on being faithful to one partner.
In Uganda, the central message for the nation, is saying ‘no” to multiple sexual partners and to casual sex. One message loveLife has found leads to useful discussion is ‘HIV loves teenage pregnancy”.
A voice worth listening to on the subject of messaging is that of Dumisani Rebombo, a gender activist working for EngenderHealth South Africa. He say messages that exclude men or blame them for the spread of HIV and Aids will not work. Not all men are poor role models like former deputy president Jacob Zuma. What we need are national messages that see men as ‘solution-seekers” rather than predators.
Have we unwittingly bypassed our learners by preaching the ABC instead of seeing them as ‘solution-seekers” in the fight against HIV? Have we given the learners information, but left them without the means to internalise and process that information? If they know all the facts, what comes next?
A starting point is ongoing HIV awareness in schools that stimulates and involves learners. One platform with the potential to reach every learner in the school on a weekly basis is assembly. The fact that the principal officiates at assembly already carries a powerful message.
While I was working in schools with volunteer HIV leaders, we used assembly slots to create HIV awareness. Here are a few of the HIV-related activities we presented, some of them taking only 10 minutes of assembly time:
a balloon debate or short debate,
storytelling,
a collage of voices on stigma, for example; Mandela’s public statement the day after his son died of Aids,
reading poetry on HIV written by learners, and
the whole assembly could be run by learners — music, prayer and short address.
A starting point for your school could be to recount the true story that follows, at a school assembly to illustrate the importance of information when you face a life-threatening situation involving HIV/Aids.
Choose a learner with a gift for storytelling to take the role of Tilly Smith. I used this story at a youth meeting at Monash South Africa and the learners were spellbound.
Two weeks before the tsunami disaster in 2005 that took the lives of about 178 000 people, Tilly Smith, a 10-year-old English schoolgirl put her geography lessons to good use by quickly recognising the warning signs of a tsunami.
Tilly and her family were holidaying at a Thai resort on the island of Phuket at the time of the disaster. During a walk on the beach with her family, Tilly was the only one to notice the first signs of a tsunami.
‘Suddenly, I saw this bubbling on the water, right on the edge and foam sizzling just like in a frying pan,” she remembered. ‘The water was coming in, but it wasn’t going out again. It was coming in and then in, towards the hotel.”
She recognised it as a sign that tidal waves were only minutes away and she alerted her mother.
Her father, Colin, remembers Tilly becaming hysterical. He took action and returned to the hotel and warned the hotel staff of the danger.
The beach was swiftly evacuated — only minutes before disaster struck.
The beach near the hotel was one of the few in Phuket where no one was killed or seriously injured.
Tilly was later invited to United Nations headquarters by officials for the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, an agency that educates people throughout the world on proper disaster response.
Learners are faced with what has been called ‘a silent tsunami” — the HIV pandemic. It is insidious — unless you are tested, you do not know that you are infected. In fact, you are unlikely to feel the first signs of illness for up to 10 years. Armed with information, it is possible to turn the tide. To illustrate this point, the following situation can serve as an example: a girl is HIV negative, she meets a guy and falls in love.
This is what she does not know:
the guy sleeps around,
he never uses a condom,
she does not know that he is HIV positive, and
nor does he.
He says: ‘If you love me, you must prove it by having sex with me.”
She says: ‘I love you.”
You can finish the story. It does not have a happy ending.
Would this couple have acted differently if they were aware of the facts?
Joan Dommisse is an HIV trainer