Doing Our Part To Educate About HIV/AIDS

True or False: You Die Of AIDS?

It’s that time of year again. The days and weeks surrounding December 1. Actually, I wanted to succinctly explain, using dates, the significance of the first 2 weeks of December that was described to me as “Human Rights Awareness” weeks, but, it seems that the information regarding an official “Human Rights Awareness” period is a little confusing to me. So, I will refer to what I was told by the librarians is that starting with World AIDS Day on December 1^st, the following two weeks would have programs aimed at school kids focusing on HIV/AIDS, domestic violence, human trafficking, and other human rights issues. While some people and organizations in Ukraine take up this cause and fight year round, it seems that the library in Razdol’noye works on it just long enough for its inclusion in their year-end reports. Since Lenara and I developed the HIV/AIDS presentation last year, we pulled the paperwork out of the mothballs and prepared to give it once again to anyone who would listen. We have recently partnered with the local Department of Social Services (DSS) who expressed an interest in seeing our presentation and any other Human Rights information we might have. Well, this was exciting, I thought. I was asked to be included in a meeting with the DSS that went very well. The director there has some good contacts and was able to get us a presentation appointment at the orphanage. So, on Saturday December 1, Lenara and I met our friend Vika (who works at the DSS) and the DSS director and went to the orphanage to give our HIV/AIDS presentation. We did have some hiccups regarding materials in that for all previous presentations we have brought everything we would need for the talk, but this time we told the DSS what THEY needed to bring for us. Sadly, on account of some poor time management skills, only half of the materials showed on time to the classroom, causing us to have to improvise with a Plan ‘B’ during the presentation. It all worked out as a successful presentation, but we knew that if we were to partner with DSS again we would have to be more diligent in the follow-through in terms of our needs. The presentation was considered a success by all involved and was the first step to an ongoing partnership between our library and the DSS.

 Kids at the orphanage filling out the before presentation quiz

A table of red ribbons to be given out to kids as a reminder of our presentation

 Lenara and I doing our thing at the orphanage

During the next week, the DSS got us two more appointments to give our presentation in a local school. However, it was agreed between Lenara and I that we would work with Vika to eventually have Vika work as my translator instead of Lenara. We invited her to our office and explained that with some brief practice, we were confident that she could take on the role. The thing about this presentation is that Lenara is able to translate on-the-fly, although it does not have to be done that way. I have a list of 10 facts that I need to get to the students and there is no reason that if the translation is written down that it couldn’t just be given as a scripted dialogue. Earlier in the year I gave a talk about the importance of clean water to a class using this method with our friend Ira whose English is very limited, and it went fine. At our meeting, we gave Vika some papers with the presentation translated into Russian (after waiting 6 months for Lenara to do this for me, out of frustration, I asked the English Club to do it for me). What I hadn’t counted on was the fact that I can almost never read Russian cursive writing- and one of our club members is a doctor, so you have to figure that even the Ukrainians have a tough time reading his writing! Since I couldn’t read it, I couldn’t type it. Vika took the text and said she would work to type it out and return later in the week to practice, since her fear of public speaking would be an additional hurdle she would need to overcome. Well, her work schedule did not allow for another meeting. On Friday morning, Lenara and I agreed that we would plan to give the presentation together, and be pleasantly surprised if Vika arrived prepared to be my partner. On the drive to the school, Vika informed us that she had, in fact, typed out all of the text and said she would try to work with me today. We had two sessions, so I figured that the worst that could happen would be that Vika start with the first and Lenara would take over for the second. We arrived at the school and had some waiting time before classes changed. Vika and I did a quick runthrough of the text while Lenara did some tweaking. I knew we were as ready as we were going to be, given the time constraints. Well, Vika did great and I was very happy with our presentation, as were the other opinion passers. All of the materials were there and everything ran as smoothly as it could have. Lenara was there for encouragement, but Vika hardly needed it. I did not detect any trepidation on her part and even listened to her go off script a few times to highlight some areas that she felt were of significant importance to the students. I hope to be able to convince her that we should give this presentation more between now and the end of the school year. I am also available to work on ANY projects the DSS has, so I hope to cultivate this new relationship that seems to be growing nicely.

 Vika and I explaining Anti-Retroviral Therapy (HIV medication) to the students

 You can lead a class to a presentation, but you can't make them pay attention

A scene from one of our videos that we show to describe the mechanics of HIV/AIDS

Sadly, the biggest obstacles to HIV/AIDS information, education, and treatment in Ukraine (and elsewhere I am sure) are stigma and discrimination. Officially, there are 230,000 HIV+ people living in Ukraine. Only 1 in 2 HIV+ people knows they are positive. Only 4% of Ukrainians have ever had an HIV test. 10 people die every day in Ukraine of AIDS related disease. There are 58 new infections occurring every day in Ukraine. The problem is that just going to the polyclinic to ask for an HIV test can cause gossip and even though I would like to think of the doctors ability to keep information confidential, from what I have experienced first-hand in the clinic and hospital here, there is no doubt in my mind that rumors would spread like wildfire if there was an HIV+ patient in town. It is fear of discrimination that keeps people from seeking medical advice about the disease. It is this small town mentality that sends those concerned for their own health to bigger cities where anonymity is at least a little more assured. Ukraine has some of the highest HIV rates in all of Europe and it is programs like our presentation that can help to get the word out about myths and truths regarding the virus. We give an 8 question quiz before and after the presentation to determine how much is known before versus how much is learned from our talk. According to the quizzes, at least they are paying attention and hearing something. I know they hear us. I hope they are listening too.

The answer is FALSE. You do NOT die of AIDS. You die of opportunistic infections such as tuberculosis or influenza that your body cannot fight off because the immune system has become weakened due to AIDS.