Guiding the young
ABHINAY KUMAR SHARMA
Everybody knows that AIDS/HIV is spreading in India sporadically. More than this, it is more dangerous than any other disease just because of its incurability. It is a grave thing that adolescents are becoming more vulnerable for HIV/AIDS. In India, we have about 225 million adolescents in the age group 10-19 years, the largest ever cohort of young people to make a transition to adulthood. The physical changes that herald adolescence are the most visible and striking markers of this stage. Their developing brains bring new cognitive skills that enhance their ability to reason and to think abstractly. They develop emotionally, establishing a new sense of who they are and who they want to become. They begin to experiment with new behaviour. Adolescence is the primary stair towards the youth stage and everybody knows that youth are the destiny of our country. If they should be entangled in HIV, how can our country survive?
Umbrella programme
That’s why the Adolescent Education Programme (AEP) has been started, with this objective in view. It is a joint initiative by the Ministry of Human Resource Development and the National Aids Control Organisation (NACO) to equip every adolescent (child between10-19 years) with scientific information, knowledge and life skills to protect themselves from HIV infection and manage their concerns pertaining to reproductive and sexual health. The AEP is an umbrella programme to cover all the secondary and senior secondary schools of the country.
The methodology adopted is interactive, participatory and based on life skills. In this regard a channel is intrinsic for providing proper guidance to youth. It has been proved that “media” is the appropriate channel for this education programme. Society hesitates to accept this programme thinking it to be an early one for adolescents or a vulgar one that can contaminate children’s minds leading to premature levels. In general it is of the opinion that it can bring down morality.
Media’s role
These objections can be removed through the media by sensitising it in favour of the AEP. If the media is provided with the necessary basic briefing on the social relevance of this programme the doubts and misgivings can be analysed and set right. The media can play a vital role in bridging the gap between the programme and the society because of its wide reach. Once society is convinced by the media, there will be no misperception regarding this specific programme.
So one thing is obvious. It will be necessary for the IEC (Information, Education and Communication) section of State AIDS Control Society (SACS), its primary communication representative, to make balanced equations with the media organisations. Relevant information can be disseminated through media units.
In this way media can boost the efforts of the AEP; afterwards it will be called Life Skill Education Programme. AEP is a milestone for adolescents because it teaches them about physical awareness and media is the resource that can play a leading role in creating the right perception in this regard. Therefore, if AEP is to be successful, the media’s task will be to disseminate the right sense of the programme.
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