The issue of creating more awareness on HIV and AIDS cannot be overlooked globally. In-spite-of all the campaigns carried out, only a little difference has been made from the last sero-sentinel survey. This can be attributed to the non-carriage of adequate message of HIV and AIDS to the people who ought to receive it more as well as the non-usage of the right media to disseminate the message. HIV and AIDS NGOs, religious leaders and other stakeholders like the women and youth as well as HIV and AIDS networks in constituencies have not been involved in planning and implementation of programmes. This ought not to be so.
Due to this “oversight,” HIV has continued to invade the territories of people especially the rural dwellers and most of them have died of AIDS. This is because they have not been adequately informed on the need to go for HIV test, neither have they been built up to live positive lives. They still believe HIV/AIDS is a death sentence and cannot be remedied. Some of them have gone as far as committing suicide. Those who have been known to have contracted HIV have been dissociated with and treated as outcast causing those who later know they have also contracted the virus to maintain non-disclosure, avoiding to be cast out as others were.
The most vulnerable who are the women, girls and youth in general should be carried along in this programme. For the woman, she has three roles to play in mankind development; procreation, family upkeep and the nation’s human increase. The girl child has an equal opportunity with the boy child and could be greater if given the opportunity in nation’s development. The youth in future takes over from those who are guarding and upholding the nation’s boundaries. All these three groups should be given attention to reduce the impact of HIV and AIDS in our constituencies.
If one looks at what the driving force into contracting the virus is, it will be discovered that every thing bothers around ignorance and poverty. But if they are well oriented on the ways they can avoid contracting the virus and for those who have already contracted, the ways they can live positively, the issue of HIV and AIDS having impact on them will be greatly reduced.
See for instance, the women cannot say no to unwanted sex, the girls are forced into early marriages as third or fourth wives and the male youth are driven into violence which can expose them into negative activities like designing tattoos, sharing needles for drug use, homosexuality, etc, hence contracting HIV.
HIV and AIDS Campaign need to be carried out the more using the media, NGOs, networks, religious bodies, giving them more capacity building on the need of disclosure, discouraging the idea of stigma, empowering the infected to live positively as much as possible.
Apart from using radio and television adverts, other medium to carry out this campaign is by using bill boards (electronically or ordinary), organizing plays in village arenas, production of wrists bands T-shirts and fez-caps, production and distribution of handbills, educating the stakeholders like the village heads, youth leaders, road transport officials, market trader officials, teachers etc. The production and distribution of T-shirts and fez-caps are at times seen as wastes, but on the other hand, they are all reminders of the messages that came along with them. NGOs, faith-based bodies and organizations, networks should be used to create more awareness, carry out more capacity buildings, call back the youth who have already been involved in violent acts, educate the girl child, empower the woman to be independent, re-build the capacity of the female sex worker on the ways to avoid or spreading the HIV virus, develop peer educators and have a proper follow up to see to the success of the projects. All these will go a long way in reducing the impact of HIV/AIDS in our constituencies. ###
