AIDS education is the key
Jul 13, 2003
SCRAMBLING around the room wearing a puffy strawberry and cream coloured dress, seven-year-old Florence Nampuja plops into a seat, swings her thin legs beneath her and explains how to protect against unsafe sex
SCRAMBLING around the room wearing a puffy strawberry and cream coloured dress, seven-year-old Florence Nampuja plops into a seat, swings her thin legs beneath her and explains how to protect against unsafe sex.
As she uses her tiny hands to show how to use a condom, she hums a song about how to stop sugar daddies from persuading her to have sex.
Such candid talk may seem astounding, but not in Uganda. Nampuja is simply learning about safe sex at a tender age, something that has become the norm here.
She’s sitting in the single-story, concrete building of The AIDS Support Organisation (TASO) in Entebbe, holding her aunt’s weak hand, yet another woman in her life, dying from HIV/AIDS.
Nampuja knows how AIDS is transmitted because Uganda’s war to reduce its HIV/AIDS infection rate, by enlisting the entire population in frank discussions about sex and the disease.
Condom use is heavily promoted, putting Uganda at odds with the Bush administration, which pushes for abstinence and has directed about one-third of new AIDS prevention money for Africa to groups that advocate ‘abstinence before marriage.’
So when President Bush visits this clinic in the lush hills of Entebbe on Friday, he is likely to hear opinions contrary to his own. “I will not mind telling Mr. Bush when he visits, that young children need to know about condoms here,’’ said Michael Bernard Etukoit, the manager of TASO.
“It is too idealistic to preach abstain when I serve 50,000 people with HIV/AIDS alone, in my clinic.’’
In Uganda, where nearly one million people have died from HIV/AIDS since the disease was first identified in 1983, it is almost never too early to start talking about AIDS or sex education.
The entire nation, from the President to grandmothers and first-graders, have been mobilised over the last 11 years, in Africa’s most successful fight against the raging epidemic.
While Africa is home to 70 % of the world’s HIV/AIDS patients, with at least one in three adults HIV-positive in some countries, Uganda’s HIV/AIDS infection rates have plummeted from 30% to 5% in slightly more than a decade.
Uganda’s HIV/AIDS fighting mantra is referred to as ABC: Abstain, be faithful or use a condom.
The government launched a massive campaign in the media to encourage people to get tested and to follow the ABC’s.
It was the first African country to even talk about HIV/AIDS, a topic that had previously been considered taboo. In Kenya, leaders denied HIV/AIDS existed and called it “a mysterious disease.’’
Still, the rates of infection in Uganda are uneven, with higher numbers in the rural areas, health workers say.
Free testing has been slow finding its way to the rural areas and people there cannot afford the $4 to $7 fee. In the cities however, people of all ages are frank and focused about wearing condoms and getting tested frequently.
“This is our life here. We can not fight it if we are hiding.†said Nampuja’s aunt, Zeporah Mukamusoni. Nampuja’s mother died from HIV/AIDS last year.
Health care workers here are hoping that as Bush witnesses the poverty that often forces woman and young people into sex, and sees the heart breaking damage the epidemic has caused, he will put health concerns ahead of political and religious ideology, and talk about options instead of just abstinence.
Bush, who has said the world is morally obligated to help save lives, has pledged $15b for programmes to prevent and treat AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean.
Edith Mukisa, the feisty project manager at the Naguru Teenage Information and Health Centre in Kampala, was concerned about the emphasis on abstinence as the centre might not qualify for the money.
“It is a big problem, this abstinence stuff,†she said. “I want to tell Bush that I just do not get what the problem is with educating the population about various methods of HIV/AIDS prevention.â€
Young people pick up condoms and watch videos on both abstinence and safe sex at her centre. A pamphlet at the centre is titled, “Hot ‘n’ Healthy,†and shows a sketch of a couple with their hands down each other’s pants.
Uganda is trying to make virginity trendy with the younger generations by saying that it is healthy, to wait to have sex until marriage, but officials are unsure of the impact this message has.
They insist, however, that condoms work and often cite their own HIV negative cases to prove it.
In the personal ads of the popular weekend tabloid, The Red Pepper, a person’s HIV-negative status and the acceptance of condom use are advertised along with their looks and job status.
The 10-year old NGO Straight Talk Foundation, one the country’s most successful promoters of the fight against HIV/AIDS, produces colourful newspapers and broadcasts radio shows for Africa’s youths.
The group discusses everything from masturbation to myths about virginity and the effects of poverty on sex.
One of the common questions the foundation gets from young women, is what to do if men offer them money or gifts to have sex without a condom.
They also tell of men who tell girls that they will grow a bone in their vaginas, if they do not have sex before they are 15; and of men who use money to entice young girls into having sex by offering to pay their school fees.
“If we must tackle HIV/AIDS, we must tackle all the issues at hand. Uganda realises that it has a problem with HIV/AIDS, so let us deal with it,’’ said Sanyu Nkiinzi, a radio announcer for Straight Talk radio.
At TASO, a drama group that call itself the ‘HIV Positive People’—practiced a song for Bush. Joyce Nakabyebu, 33, who is HIV-positive and suffering from spinal tuberculosis, sang with a thin, sweet melodic voice.
“Why you? Why me? We are wondering why this disease came to us. AIDS has no mercy, least of all for the people who think they know better.’’
Washington Post
As she uses her tiny hands to show how to use a condom, she hums a song about how to stop sugar daddies from persuading her to have sex.
Such candid talk may seem astounding, but not in Uganda. Nampuja is simply learning about safe sex at a tender age, something that has become the norm here.
She’s sitting in the single-story, concrete building of The AIDS Support Organisation (TASO) in Entebbe, holding her aunt’s weak hand, yet another woman in her life, dying from HIV/AIDS.
Nampuja knows how AIDS is transmitted because Uganda’s war to reduce its HIV/AIDS infection rate, by enlisting the entire population in frank discussions about sex and the disease.
Condom use is heavily promoted, putting Uganda at odds with the Bush administration, which pushes for abstinence and has directed about one-third of new AIDS prevention money for Africa to groups that advocate ‘abstinence before marriage.’
So when President Bush visits this clinic in the lush hills of Entebbe on Friday, he is likely to hear opinions contrary to his own. “I will not mind telling Mr. Bush when he visits, that young children need to know about condoms here,’’ said Michael Bernard Etukoit, the manager of TASO.
“It is too idealistic to preach abstain when I serve 50,000 people with HIV/AIDS alone, in my clinic.’’
In Uganda, where nearly one million people have died from HIV/AIDS since the disease was first identified in 1983, it is almost never too early to start talking about AIDS or sex education.
The entire nation, from the President to grandmothers and first-graders, have been mobilised over the last 11 years, in Africa’s most successful fight against the raging epidemic.
While Africa is home to 70 % of the world’s HIV/AIDS patients, with at least one in three adults HIV-positive in some countries, Uganda’s HIV/AIDS infection rates have plummeted from 30% to 5% in slightly more than a decade.
Uganda’s HIV/AIDS fighting mantra is referred to as ABC: Abstain, be faithful or use a condom.
The government launched a massive campaign in the media to encourage people to get tested and to follow the ABC’s.
It was the first African country to even talk about HIV/AIDS, a topic that had previously been considered taboo. In Kenya, leaders denied HIV/AIDS existed and called it “a mysterious disease.’’
Still, the rates of infection in Uganda are uneven, with higher numbers in the rural areas, health workers say.
Free testing has been slow finding its way to the rural areas and people there cannot afford the $4 to $7 fee. In the cities however, people of all ages are frank and focused about wearing condoms and getting tested frequently.
“This is our life here. We can not fight it if we are hiding.†said Nampuja’s aunt, Zeporah Mukamusoni. Nampuja’s mother died from HIV/AIDS last year.
Health care workers here are hoping that as Bush witnesses the poverty that often forces woman and young people into sex, and sees the heart breaking damage the epidemic has caused, he will put health concerns ahead of political and religious ideology, and talk about options instead of just abstinence.
Bush, who has said the world is morally obligated to help save lives, has pledged $15b for programmes to prevent and treat AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean.
Edith Mukisa, the feisty project manager at the Naguru Teenage Information and Health Centre in Kampala, was concerned about the emphasis on abstinence as the centre might not qualify for the money.
“It is a big problem, this abstinence stuff,†she said. “I want to tell Bush that I just do not get what the problem is with educating the population about various methods of HIV/AIDS prevention.â€
Young people pick up condoms and watch videos on both abstinence and safe sex at her centre. A pamphlet at the centre is titled, “Hot ‘n’ Healthy,†and shows a sketch of a couple with their hands down each other’s pants.
Uganda is trying to make virginity trendy with the younger generations by saying that it is healthy, to wait to have sex until marriage, but officials are unsure of the impact this message has.
They insist, however, that condoms work and often cite their own HIV negative cases to prove it.
In the personal ads of the popular weekend tabloid, The Red Pepper, a person’s HIV-negative status and the acceptance of condom use are advertised along with their looks and job status.
The 10-year old NGO Straight Talk Foundation, one the country’s most successful promoters of the fight against HIV/AIDS, produces colourful newspapers and broadcasts radio shows for Africa’s youths.
The group discusses everything from masturbation to myths about virginity and the effects of poverty on sex.
One of the common questions the foundation gets from young women, is what to do if men offer them money or gifts to have sex without a condom.
They also tell of men who tell girls that they will grow a bone in their vaginas, if they do not have sex before they are 15; and of men who use money to entice young girls into having sex by offering to pay their school fees.
“If we must tackle HIV/AIDS, we must tackle all the issues at hand. Uganda realises that it has a problem with HIV/AIDS, so let us deal with it,’’ said Sanyu Nkiinzi, a radio announcer for Straight Talk radio.
At TASO, a drama group that call itself the ‘HIV Positive People’—practiced a song for Bush. Joyce Nakabyebu, 33, who is HIV-positive and suffering from spinal tuberculosis, sang with a thin, sweet melodic voice.
“Why you? Why me? We are wondering why this disease came to us. AIDS has no mercy, least of all for the people who think they know better.’’
Washington Post