The youth at Save Lanka Kids are all HIV Positive.
They are HIV Positive, meaning that they are positive about the work they do. The reason why these proactive volunteers have walked the streets carrying placards proclaiming that fact, and changed their Facebook statuses to read the same thing, is all part of their latest campaign.
Taking a further step in their proactive stance on HIV and AIDS, the organization has undertaken a series of awareness campaigns and events over the past few months.
To get back to their latest venture to commemorate World Aids Day, Save Lanka Kids is set to launch a whole new brand of awareness campaign – "I am HIV Positive!" With this slightly startling catch phrase, they will take the streets once again, championing three causes – creating awareness, removing the stigma associated with AIDS, and most importantly promoting an attitude of optimism towards dealing with the epidemic.
"This is precisely what we mean when we say that we are HIV Positive," declares Prabu Deepan, the Project Manager at Save Lanka Kids. "What we want to achieve is a society that, to start with, does not disassociate themselves from people who are infected. We also want people to believe in the fact that they need to be positive about the responsibility they have towards a society with approximately 1000 reported cases of HIV and 4000 to 5000 estimated cases."
The statistics concerned with HIV are alarming – on the last count, it was found that 33.2 million people worldwide suffer from HIV, and 25 million people have died from it.
"However," reiterates Prabu, "we feel that it is not just the virus that kills, but also the stigma associated with it, and that is what we are striving to eradicate. It is also important to note that 45-50% of new infections are in youth, and so the youth have a major role to play in making a difference in the lives of their peers.
"In a country where religion takes on a significant role in the lives of its people," he continues, "we have also tried to communicate the fact that the virus is not some form of destruction that God has inflicted on mankind as punishment for sin."
With this in mind, the organisation has busied itself, networking with other organisations, conducting street campaigns, cinema campaigns and devising innovative ways of catching the eye of the public. They have also launched a comprehensive website of the campaign – www.behivpositive.com
However positive and proactive these youth are, their work is constantly met with challenges. "We try to conduct programmes in the schools, and while some schools show interest, many are slightly unwilling to allow programmes of this nature to be conducted," says Prabu.
For the volunteers, most of whom are very young, similar problems arise. "I would say that the biggest stumbling block to any progress we hope to make is that very few people take us seriously," explained Shaziya(20). "We are a youth based organisation and we deal mainly with people who are not youth; so we do our best to make every aspect of our work-from meetings and presentations, down to our letters and letterheads, as professional as possible.
The hours are long and the work is hard, but the HIV Positive young adults all agree that not only have the hard work, late nights and tantrums all been worth it, but they have also learnt a great deal along the way and had a lot of fun in the process. Summing up the Save Lanka Kids experience, Sindhiya(18) says, "As an 18-year-old, you never imagine that you could ever make that sort of difference but the truth is, you can, and that feeling of knowing that you have brought about change really makes you an enthusiastic believer in the cause you uphold."
If you are interested in volunteering, call Dominick on 2513865, or check out www.behivpositive.com or imhivpositive.lie.com. |
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