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Goal 3
Questions – Challenges to HIV Prevention
For the AIDS project’s third activity, participants answered the
following questions and they also asked community leaders for their advice
and opinions:
- Is it easy to talk about HIV/AIDS with friends? Health workers? Parents?
- What cultural practices does your community have that help prevent HIV? What cultural practices promote the spread of HIV?
- How does the economic situation in your countries affect HIV/AIDS?
- How do your local churches feel about HIV/AIDS? What are they doing to help HIV prevention? What more could they be doing?
- Could
someone acquire HIV from a blood transfusion in your country?
Educational
Goal 3: What did students and teachers say about challenges to HIV prevention?
1) Is it easy to talk about HIV/AIDS with friends?
Health workers? Parents?
Students feel that there is a need for parent-youth communication around the issue of HIV/AIDS, because they can talk freely around the issue with friends but not parents. However, participants in Zimbabwe noted correctly that friends do not always have the best information. Ugandans felt that parents should be the ones to start the discussion about HIV/AIDS, but South Africans stated that it depends on the parents (because some parents know more about HIV/AIDS and some are more comfortable discussing the issues).
Many Ghanaians felt that they could discuss HIV and AIDS freely with health workers. Ghanaians also said that the traditional healers they interviewed told them that people with HIV or AIDS talk freely with them.
2) What cultural practices does your community have that help prevent HIV? That promote it?
A few cultural issues were raised by all four countries:
- Polygamy
- Wife Inheritance
- Benefits
of puberty rites
Ghanaian participants raised the issue of whether polygamy promotes or hinders the spread of HIV. Zimbabweans agreed that polygamy spreads HIV, with the reasoning that one or more of the wives in a polygamous marriage may have outside partners.
Ghanaian students and teachers also felt that puberty rites for girls promote abstinence and therefore prevent the spread of the epidemic. However, some participants mentioned that male and female circumcision ceremonies sometimes promote the spread because instruments are shared. Others mentioned that the use of alcohol at funerals and other ceremonies increases risk of HIV because they typically lower normal sexual inhibitions. Ugandans agreed that funerals and other ceremonies sometimes glorify sex, and, in addition, offer women to men during ceremonial times.
One HOPEFUL comment by South African participants is that, in their country, condoms are becoming part of the culture. Is this true where YOU live?
Some participants felt that community dramas help HIV prevention. Many students were interested in doing dramas in their communities. Before promoting this, however, the Coordinator feels that participants need to look at HIV/AIDS studies to see if dramas have worked in other prevention programs.
One DANGEROUS cultural practice is sometimes promoted by traditional healers, according to Zimbabwean participants. This is when traditional healers tell older men to have sexual intercourse with younger women in order to be cured of HIV/AIDS.
3) How does the economic situation in your country affect HIV/AIDS?
Nearly all participants sent a strong response to this question--a poor economy leads to people taking sexual risks for money. Tied to this is the issue of sugar daddies and mommies.
In Uganda, single motherhood increases a woman’s economic and therefore sexual risk, as do poor parents sending girls into early marriages. Zimbabweans rightly noted that orphans are at high risk both economically and sexually, and even some children with parents are sent to find money outside the home. In South Africa especially, migration increases this risk.
4) How do local churches feel about HIV/AIDS? What are they doing to help prevention? What more could they be doing?
Some churches are getting involved with the reality of HIV prevention, but many still don’t want to talk about AIDS.
In Ghana, some pastors think that AIDS is a punishment, and some preach only monogamy, but others preach against the stigma felt by people living with HIV or AIDS. Some churches are organizing HIV/AIDS education projects. Some church officials interviewed by participants are encouraging pre-marital HIV testing, but have difficulty discussing condoms. Some are even promoting early marriage to avoid what they see as teenage promiscuity.
Youth feel that churches could do more to promote prevention, and should reach past their congregations into communities. Many also feel that churches could also help youth with income generating projects.
5) Could someone acquire HIV/AIDS from a blood transfusion in your country? Why or why not?
Whether blood is safe is unclear to students and teachers.
According to WorLD participants, blood in Ghana is screened, but people don’t trust that it is safe, especially in district hospitals. Participants in Zimbabwe said that the lack of suitable equipment makes the blood available for transfusion unsafe. Participants in South Africa felt that there is perhaps a 5% chance of getting HIV through blood in their country.
If blood is truly safe in these four countries (as it is reported to be in at least Zimbabwe), then blood services need to do a better job of letting people know.
