What is it like to live as a child with HIV? How does a child such as this deal with death, the loss of a parent, poverty or medical treatment?
An American publication called Be a Friend provides some clues. It features the writing of children and teenagers living with Aids.
For instance Kevin (13) writes: ”I wonder how often I’m going to get sick and what will happen to me during those times. I worry about how much energy I could lose and if the day would come that I wouldn’t be able to play sports or to play with my friends. Sometimes I think I have only a month to live. Other times I’m more hopeful and I think I’ll live at least a couple more years.”
In South Africa and other parts of the world children who are HIV-positive or have Aids are overwhelmingly ”voiceless”. This anonymity was challenged recently by two 12-year-old children at major world conferences.
HIV-positive Karen Dunaway Gonzalez from Honduras addressed 23 000 delegates at the opening ceremony of the 17th International Aids Conference in Mexico City to a standing ovation.
Similarly Severn Suzuk from Canada, addressed the delegates representing countries throughout the world at the UN conference on environment and development to a thunderous applause.
Suzuk and a team of three friends, raised the money themselves to attend the conference in Brazil. Suzuk opened her speech saying: ”I am here to fight for my future. I am here to speak on behalf of the starving children around the world whose cries go unheard.”
Why is it important to listen to the voices of children? What have they got to offer that adults lack? One thing is the language they use. It is forthright and simple.
Subsequently Stephen Lewis, former UN official, made a plea for funds to be raised to enable children to attend Aids conferences in the future. ”Young people from around the world must not be absent from these conferences, for the world needs to hear their voices directly; not processed, digested and delivered through a monotonous adult. Speeches such as Karen’s must be part of the programme.”
I taught English in mainstream high schools for 26 years but feel guilty that, too often, it was my voice and not those of the learners that dominated my lessons.
After retiring I gained a new repertoire of listening skills that I have put to use in my HIV/Aids workshops. Without prying I get to know some thoughts and emotions of learners in the first half hour of meeting them.
During these sessions I have learned how the mother of a grade 11 boy deprived herself of food, to feed her family and pay school fees. I listened to a girl who lost family members in a taxi accident the day prior to our meeting. These intimate disclosures were unlocked by nothing more than simple listening and the space to speak.
Sometimes it takes a child’s uncomplicated perspective to shock us into renewed action, whether it is to protect the environment, to fight poverty or to provide drugs and infrastructure to save those living with Aids.
In South Africa many children would not have been infected or lost their parents if treatment had been available. Leadership on the HIV/Aids front in our country has been lacking and still is. Perhaps this is a key area in which the voice of a child can prompt a better approach.