I'm still processing things from my last blog.
That being said, I've now participated in two projects at other Volunteer's sites and I'm particularly happy with the SIDA-awareness (HIV/AIDS) day that I helped a friend with yesterday.
I'm typing this at the Cyber in my souk town, so I won't be able to take the time to give the day justice, but I'll try to hit on some of the highlights.
My friend's site is actually physically the closest to mine. It's much bigger than Tamazitinu, and has a College/Lycee: Middle and High Schools. In fact, about 50 girls from my town stay at the boarding house there and attend middle school.
One of the benefits of this to her is that there are teachers who speak English and therefore, a way to talk about SIDA to students in an academic and safe way. I attended one of the planning meetings last weekend, but one teacher in particular, really spearheaded the efforts to do a SIDA day workshop.
We expected there to be 30-40 students. There were 200 crammed in a room meant for 60. The workshop was set up where we gave out ribbons and explained the signifance, then a science teacher (who has taught sex education-like classes before) described SIDA in very technical terms. It was in Arabic, so I didn't understand any of it, but I know it was described as an STD and used cellular biology and discussed DNA.
We had a dialogue that we had students read out loud. Then, my friend gave out the numbers and some relevent statistics, and, the most interesting and rewarding part happened when we opened the floor for questions.
Obviously, as sex is so taboo as a subject in this Muslim country, we were all a little worried. There was some discussion of whether it was appropriate to talk about it, but the students had some of the most incredible questions that my friend and I responded to. Some included:
What should you do if you know your husband has SIDA?
Why is there so much SIDA in Africa?
What can we do in poor countries to prevent or treat SIDA?
Does SIDA exist in our region?
Is there anywhere in the world that doesn't have SIDA?
What impact has globalization had on SIDA?
If you have a child who has SIDA, what should you do about it?
What treatment exists in Morocco?
How are relationships with people with SIDA in the US?
My friend and I took turns answering and one of the teachers translated into Arabic.
It was amazing. People were interested, engaged, and for the most part, mature and open. Afterwards, some girls came up and asked questions they had been embarassed to ask in the open ("If I share soap, can I get SIDA?") and the teachers (8 had come and to some degree, participated) thanked us for coming and for the discussion.
I was floored. It wasn't a perfect day: we weren't able, due to time constraints, to do the art project or the way of evaluating retention of key information, but it was really positive and honest and done in a way that wasn't hashuma, or shameful. Some of the boys laughed a bit too much, but really, I had no idea how well it would go, or how many people would come and participate.
I think, because of the nature of my site, that it's not something I can duplicate, but it was really good to be a part of it.
1 comment:
I went to this conference a few weeks ago by Search for a Cure and I'm kind of bummed that I didn't get to stay for the whole thing b/c they were going to focus on prevention in the afternoon, but the morning sessions I was there for were specific to treatments. Although I've worked directly with PLWHA for a number of years now, I am continuously impressed by how engaged they are in their treatment when they choose to be. The conference was attended equally by providers (social services and medical) and consumers. I found some of the language to be a bit technical and hard to follow if you didn't have much background, but based on the questions consumers were asking, it wasn't above their head at all. Totally fascinating when I also consider what little resources they have available to them (many are homeless, some English is a seond language, infinite barriers really...). I know there are plenty of people who don't adhere to treatment or really don't seem to care, but for those that do, they are so engaged!
Anyhow, I guess that just makes me think about why I came around to be interested in reproductive health issues in the first place and what a visible difference I always tended to see in people when you just get them talking. You mention the cultural taboos of Morocco that you're trying to work around but in some ways I think it's not so different from the US and the struggles we have with trying to educate people about their sexual health. For example, I learned from a CDC webcast a few weeks ago that the majority of latinos in the US still believe HIV can be transmitted by mosquitos! Holy crap do we have some work to do!!!
Anyhow, good for you for getting out there and it's cool to know that World AIDS Day really is being recognized around the world.
Many spanks,
BBC ;)
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