AIDS seminar targets young people
As part of our continuing coverage of National AIDS Week, tonight we look at the campaign to curb the global epidemic here in Belize. The population group most affected by the deadly disease is young people. With that in mind, today representatives of the National AIDS Commission took to the classroom.
Janelle Chanona, Reporting
Having perused the latest literature and sporty freshly pinned red ribbons, the students of Saint John’s Junior College were ready to get down to the discussion at hand: AIDS, and it’s inevitable impact on their lives.
Martha Carillo, Co-ordinator, National AIDS Commission.
“It touches on all of those things that we never wanted to talk about and it touches on all of those topics that our parents never want to talk about. But now because we are dealing with a crisis situation and we have been criticised for using the word crisis, but we will continue to use it until people understand we are seeing one person diagnosed a day and we’re seeing people dying every week of AIDS…and I’m talking about young people.”
Dr. Paul Edwards, Director, Epidemiology Unit
“Out of every ten persons who is infected with the virus, nine of those individuals are not aware of their HIV status. The amount of males being infected is one point one to every female. How can we reinterpret that? There are more females being infected by the virus now as compared to before.”
The panellists were pushing for abstinence and its next best friend…protection, in words their listeners would understand.
Rodel Beltran Perera, Executive Dir., Alliance Against AIDS
“What about you guy? What about you? It’s alright for you to have multiple partners, but me whe di try to protect myself, I am the woman and I’m trying to protect myself, when we’re in the car, and I am in the wrong. I am in the wrong. I am the woman, I can’t have anything to do with this, I can’t negotiate about a condom.
The woman is at risk, because of this macho mentality. The men don’t want to see the condom, they say it doesn’t fit, which is a big lie.”
But the truth of the matter is, the age group represented in the room, between ages fifteen to twenty-four, has one of the highest rate of infection of HIV/AIDS in Belize. And while the message must be learnt, it must also be lived. Reporting for News 5, I am Janelle Chanona.
We note with interest that the United Nations has seen it fit to repeat last year’s theme of “Men Make a Difference” in addition to this year’s “I care, do you?
