“Fight HIV like our grandfathers fought apartheid” – these were the wise words of a grade 11 learner. “Fighting HIV is like climbing Kilimanjaro,” another said.
Having run HIV workshops at secondary schools on the West Rand, the East Rand, Johannesburg and Soweto, and more recently Tembisa, for more than seven years now, I am still surprised by the quality of the responses I get from young people.
Each workshop takes just two hours and the last one involved a group of 24 grade 11 learners. One aim is to encourage each group to take a lead in the education of other learners. Grade 11 learners are ideal candidates for the workshops because they still have more than a year ahead of them in school and, if they are empowered through such workshops, they can influence those in their peer group and younger learners.
Information for the workshops comes from recent publications, the internet and newspapers, which provide new ideas and help to clear up misconceptions about HIV and Aids.
A recent newspaper article about the death of a grade 11 learner, who gave birth to a baby girl she called Comfort, drew me to Tembisa High, the school the girl had attended on the East Rand of Gauteng.
To some extent this sad event informed the content of the workshop. I wanted the learners to see themselves in a new light, for example as potential parents. I also wanted them to link sexual activity with parenthood.
During the workshop I asked the learners to sit in a circle. Each was asked to tell the group how many children he or she wanted and what names he or she would give the children. The average number was two or three and most wanted a boy and a girl. One girl wanted six children, three or four of whom would be adopted, she said. A boy said he wanted 10 children – all boys. But he seemed to be the joker in the pack.
Many of the names were carefully selected for their meanings, for example “Happiness” or “Gift”. The learners were surprised to hear about the name an American couple gave their baby son just before his birth – Amcher. The name was based on the first letters of a sign the couple saw when they arrived at the hospital – Albany Medical Center Hospital Emergency Room.
It became clear that parenthood had a treasured place in the hearts of girls and boys alike.
Next the group was shown 14 photographs of babies and young children. The pictures were passed around the circle and each was examined carefully. The battered and distressed face of one little tot who was injured when police dispersed a mob at a squatter camp made a big impact on the learners.
Then pictures of “sexy women” and “drop-dead gorgeous men” were passed around. Writer Desmond Morris undertook an experiment proving that the pupils of the eyes dilate when a man sees a picture of a naked woman and the same reaction takes place when a woman sees a picture of a naked man. That, of course, was not my aim. I wanted to see whether males and females differed when they saw a picture of a baby. They didn’t. In fact, they reacted in the same way.
Surely this proves that men are predisposed to be caring, involved fathers? But, why, then, do we have so many missing fathers? Countless families in South Africa are single-parent families headed by a mother or a grandmother and there are even child-headed families.
Steven Levitt points out in his book, Freakonomics: “Childhood poverty and a single-parent household are among the strongest predictors of a criminal future. Growing up in a single-parent home roughly doubles a child’s propensity to commit crime. So does a teenage mother. Another study has shown that low maternal education is the single most powerful factor leading to criminality.”
The importance of providing learners with a sound education cannot be overestimated.
Tembisa learners were asked to give their views and feelings about HIV and Aids. Each one was given a turn to speak. One of them said that fighting HIV is like climbing Kilimanjaro. Another said we need to fight HIV in the same way our grandfathers fought apartheid. Many of them said that HIV scared them and they wished there was a cure.
How can we get through to learners who are sick and tired of being told the same old thing? We need to put across new, cutting-edge information that will make them sit up and take notice. Learners need to understand that once you reach a certain level of sexual arousal there is no going back whether you have a condom or not. It is also vital for teenagers to learn the consequences of sex can be tragic.
But the biggest challenge is to ensure that teenagers themselves are at the forefront of a campaign against HIV and Aids – they must be allowed to take a lead and speak for themselves.
However, if a grade 11 learner can say that “we must fight HIV like our grandfathers fought apartheid”, we are on the right track. It’s a campaign message that will inspire an army of teenagers. We have to allow young people to join us in the fight against HIV.
Contact Joan Dommisse on 011 616 8404 or jdommisse@iburst.co.za