The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Half the HIV/AIDS cases occur among under 30s

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, May 29, 2008
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Half the HIV/AIDS cases occur among under 30s

Staff Reporter

Youth to be trained to conduct group discussions
26 districts in State included in list of
high-prevalence areas

awareness: Peer educators from 25 districts across eight States shared their experiences in HIV/AIDS prevention, in Bangalore on Wednesday.

Bangalore: A staggering 40 to 50 per cent of cases of HIV/AIDS in the country occur in young people aged between 15 and 29. And so it makes imminent sense to involve youth in creating awareness about the disease.

It was with this aim in mind that National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) and The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) identified and trained hundreds of young educators to volunteer their time to discuss with their peers topics like sexual and reproductive health, including HIV/AIDS.

In a first-of-its-kind event, over 400 peer educators from 25 districts across eight States gathered here on Wednesday to their share their experiences in HIV AIDS prevention. “Youth respond to their peers and this process helps overcome barriers and provide easy access to information. The peer educators can play a vital role in changing behaviour and lowering the risk of HIV,” said Vidya Ganesh, UNICEF’s chief of HIV/AIDS section, India.

The peer educators are picked for their leadership skills and trained to conduct group discussions and use innovative tools such as board games, cards and role playing to get their message across, she said.

For Husne Ansari (18) from Kishangunj district in Bihar, volunteering her time to be a peer educator was not a simple decision.

“As a woman, it was not easy to convince my family that I wanted to travel to villages educating people about HIV/AIDS. But I explained to my mother that learning about HIV/AIDS and educating people about it was crucial for youth in this day and age.”

Initiative

One of the reasons Bangalore was chosen as the venue was to give the State a much needed fillip to initiatives to tackle HIV/AIDS. “As many as 26 districts in Karnataka feature on NACO’s list of the country’s 150 high prevalence districts. The government, civil society, non-government organisations and academics all have a role to play in combating the disease,” said Ms. Ganesh. The national target of UNICEF’s peer education programme is to reach 70 million youth across the country in five years, she added.

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