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“Yeah, but it’s true that condoms can’t protect against HIV, right? I just heard from my friend that some new research just came out that said that HIV is so small it can pass right through condoms.”
As the new woman behind the chair at my barber shop made this comment and went about her handiwork, I realized just how wrong “campaign” was in the context of HIV prevention.
It’s common to read about an organization conducting an HIV prevention campaign for a certain population or during a certain period of time, which in and of itself is splendid. The more people being educated about HIV the better…period; however I often wonder if HIV prevention is viewed in the same context as an immunization campaign, one shot and you’re done. You receive the information once, you’re good to go. This sentiment is often expressed by schools when they say that they provide HIV prevention and proceed to describe a series of health classes that students get once during middle school. Unfortunately, HIV prevention doesn’t work like that.
New HIV information, for that matter health information in general, isn’t in the major headlines or on the radar like the latest episode of Dancing with the Stars. It’s buried in scholarly journals that gradually trickle down to the general populace. Perhaps, as a result of this distance between the information source and the recipients, many misconceptions of HIV/AIDS continuously circulate as “new” facts or information. And it doesn’t just happen in my barber shop, I have seen it happen in small-town Wisconsin and in Bangkok, in Washington, D.C. and rural Kenya. I’ve read about it all throughout the world.
When there isn’t a regular, convenient, comfortable and reliable source of HIV information available, people look to their friends, those they trust the most and feel comfortable discussing sexually-related issues with. What their friends say becomes the latest information.
This calls for HIV prevention that is not a one and you’re done, but a continuous process that revisits information and builds upon it with the most recent findings in the field. It calls for a long-term view of HIV prevention.
So…easy to say, how do we get it done? A couple of sparks…
Novice: start with your captive audiences. Educate kids in school at least once a year, starting in late elementary/early middle school and continuing through high school. It’s time for parents and administrators to acknowledge that kids are engaging in sexual activities at younger ages and need education about it.
Amatuer: Urge organizations, companies, etc. to have annual “campaigns”, so it’s not one and done. Or coordinate information so that it is regularly available, but in engaging formats so you don’t get the, “oh it’s the drug commercial again” tune-out.
All-star: Find a point from which to get the community engaged so there are individuals in the community who are championing these issues and are known as safe points of information related to these issues and constant and accurate peer-to-peer education is occurring.
This being my maiden voyage into the sea that is the AIDBlog, please let me preface all future posts by saying that I’m gunnning for as much reader participation as possible. Drop me a comment with opposition, support, an idea for the greater communtiy, a partnership proposal, just to bounce ideas back and forth, a question. It helps me, it helps you. That’s how we’re going to shake things up.
by: Kim Whipkey
originally posted on www.aids2008.com
Young people want female condoms. They are seeking information and better access to them. They are demanding the only effective and currently available method to prevent HIV that young women and women
can initiate themselves.
This groundswell of interest in female condoms surfaced at the Mexico
YouthForce Pre-Conference, particularly during a workshop I co-facilitated around expanding prevention options for women and girls. To my elation, virtually all of the 40 workshop participants had heard of female condoms, and more than half had seen or touched one. For female condom advocates, this is a rare and exciting encounter.
But the sobering refrain throughout the pre-conference was that while
many youth are passionate about female-initiated prevention options, including the female condom, they remain largely inaccessible in a wide range of countries, even for young women and men who go out of their
way to find them.
One young woman from Mexico visited ten stores in her local community before she was able to find one that sold female condoms. Yet another Mexican woman passed me a hand-written note during my presentation, stating that her peer education organization is interested in obtaining female condoms but doesn’t know to whom or where to turn, or how to pay for them.
A young man from Guyana and a young woman from Kenya shared similar stories. They reported that many young people in each country have heard of female condoms, but the product simply is not accessible for
youth. In the limited places where female condoms are available, they are costly. Whereas Guyana and Kenya are both PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) focus-countries, this is an inexcusable tragedy. Lives could be saved if female condoms were in the hands of young women and men in Guyana, Kenya, and in countries around the world.
My organization, the Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE), works to ensure that U.S. international policies and programs promote sexual and reproductive health and rights for women and girls worldwide. We believe United States can and should do more to increase global access to female condoms. In this respect, CHANGE hosts the Prevention Now! Campaign–a global campaign to advocate for dramatically increased access to female condoms and other existing options for women and men NOW!
For those at the International AIDS Conference, we encourage you to visit the Prevention Now! Campaign at the Global Village’s Women’s Networking Zone. There you can try out (and try on!), the female condom and sign the petition to urge greater access to female condoms
globally.
For more information, please visit www.preventionnow.net and download
Saving Lives Now: Female Condoms and the Role of U.S. Foreign Aid, a
new report from CHANGE that documents U.S. investment in global female
condom procurement, distribution and programming.
Together, we can help make female condoms available and accessible to all!
One of the best sessions at the preconference so far what entitled “Expanding Prevention Options for Women and Girls” led by three incredible women, including a friend and colleague of mine, Kim Whipkey from the Center for Gender and Health Equity (CHANGE). This session focused on female condoms, microbicides, vaccines and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). These prevention options, though many still in the early testing or development phases, greatly expand the range of options women have to protect themselves from transmission of HIV as well as infection of other STIs (sexually transmitted infections).
For more on female condoms and other female-initiated prevention methods, check back tomorrow!
The Youth Preconference began today, and what a whirlwind it has been! There are more than 300 young people (26 and under) here, and they are one incredible bunch. I’ve met people from Kenya, Belgium, Turkmenistan, Guyana, Canada, Uganda, Mexico, Vietnam and everywhere in between.
There are also some really incredible speakers and workshops. Here’s a taste of the day’s events:
9am: Welcome and Opening Remarks – Steve Krauss, Chief of the HIV/AIDS branch of UNFPA spoke. He had three key messages for the youth in the room:
1. HIV/AIDS and Reproductive Health Go Hand-in-Hand: There will be some people who think that youth should only be concerned with AIDS. We need to encourage them to see that AIDS doesn’t exist on its own, and needs to be addressed within a framework of sexual and reproductive health, especially among young people. According to the 2008 UN report launched this past Tuesday in New York, only 38% f women and 40% of men know how HIV is transmitted.
2. Reproductive Health is a Human Right: Your health is your right. This includes access to information on health, health skills, education and more.
3. Prevention Efforts Need to be Doubled: Currently, only 2 people have access to HIV prevention resources for every 5 who need it. We need to hold our governments accountable for prevention and how well they are doing on it.
10:30am: Plenary on Youth and the AIDS Epidemic
This session talked about why it is so important to organize around young people, and also discussed in-depth the question of:
“Why are young people so vulnerable to HIV?” Many answers and perspectives were given, including:
- Lack of comprehensive sex education
- Lack of access to youth-friendly services, including condoms, and contraceptives
- High numbers of young people in what are considered “high risks groups” (in this were mentioned sex workers, migrant populations, Men who have sex with men (MSM) and intravenous drug users (IDUs) who also lack access to information and resources needed to help keep themselves healthy and safe.
- Poverty and Unemployment, and discrimination because of these factors
- Gender, with women and girls particularly affected, as in many places it is harder for them to negotiate safe sex
- Human rights violations
- Lack of meaningful involvement of young people
more on the sessions to come soon.
