World AIDS Day

December 1st is World AIDS Day. Many PC volunteers tried to think of ways to incorporate an HIV/AIDS lesson or activity into their work today, since the holiday would provide a good segue into a fairly difficult subject.

Here in Georgia, the HIV/AIDS rate is fairly low. There are only about 4,000 cases in the country (with a population of about 4 million). But there is still a lot of concern about the possibility of an explosion in the HIV/AIDS rate here due to a number of risk factors. First, the region as a whole (made up of the former Soviet Union and eastern Europe) has the world's fastest growing rate of infection. Second, there is a lot of exchange between the Georgian population and some higher risk countries, like Ukraine and Russia (lots of men work abroad in these two countries for part of the year and then come back to their families in Georgia for a few months). Many in Georgia catch the disease from IV drug use. Also, commercial sex workers are also among the most affected population here (and at least according to anecdotal evidence, there seems to be a fairly high acceptance of men frequenting prostitutes and brothels here in Georgia). On top of this, there is very little (to no) education for most of the population about risk factors, how the disease is spread and how to protect oneself. It all adds up to a potential for a disastrously quick spread of HIV/AIDS.

One of the big hurdles to teaching people about HIV/AIDS is that sex is a taboo subject here. The society is conservative and so discussing a disease that, in most of the world, is spread primarily through unprotected sex is not easy. To try to be culturally sensitive and discuss this kind of topic poses a pretty big conundrum.

I decided to give it a try, though, and to see if I could do something at my school, either as part of one of my after-school English clubs or with the older students during class. I found an ally in one of the deputy directors, a woman who also doubles as an English teacher (most of our assistant principals also work as teachers). She immediately jumped on board and encouraged me to teach a lesson to as many of the students as possible from grades 7-12. Then she surprised me today by preparing a bulletin board in the school's main hallway with some information and pictures related to World AIDS Day.

My school's hallway bulletin board display


One of the other volunteers found a great video resource (available for free at http://www.teachaids.org/tutorials.php) about HIV/AIDS. The language is accessible enough that I thought, with some translation, the students at my school might be able to handle it. The video is also done in a very culturally sensitive way, giving lots of useful, accurate information without being too graphic or explicit. I pulled together some other materials and made a whole bunch of red ribbons to distribute to the kids (Sam joked that, with all the ribbon and pins and making of hundreds of bows, it felt like we were getting ready for a wedding).

All Ready to Present


Then today for five 40-minute class periods, I met with all the English classes that were scheduled for today, from 7th through 12th grades. In all there were 187 students and 6 teachers that participated. Surprisingly to me, I was able to translate all the difficult words and ideas with only a few grammatical stumbles (who knew I had so much active vocabulary in Russian on the immune system and ways of transmission and prevention being the best defense? If only I didn't always get tongue-tied on the word for "needle"). And the kids understood a lot from the video. I had some really great questions from some of the kids (like "Can you get HIV from a mosquito?" and "Are HIV and AIDS the same disease?") and had only a minimal amount of snickering and giggling when the discussion was about sex.

I kept the discussion off sex for the most part. At least for a first attempt at starting to educate the kids about HIV/AIDS, I wanted to make sure they had some basic facts and had a good grasp of what the disease is. Also, since a lot of transmission in Georgia is due to IV drug use, I focused a lot on that, since I figure that is both culturally sensitive and culturally appropriate. It's a start, at least, and might open the way for the more taboo subjects to be covered in the future.

Giving the Presentation


All in all, despite being nervous about how the students would take the information and what kind of reaction my presentation/lesson would get from the school's director and other teachers, I think everything went really well. I think it is a bit risky to try to talk about HIV/AIDS in schools here because as PCVs we don't want to alienate ourselves in our communities or gain reputations as being troublemakers. But I also think that it's a risk worth taking, and I'm definitely excited that my attempt seemed to pay off. Hopefully, I'll be able to work in some more HIV/AIDS and general health related education projects throughout my time here.