the NYC highly condemn the act of Castle Hospital for Women in Colombo

The National Youth Coalition (NYC) of Sri Lanka on Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights and all the affiliated organizations of the coalition highly condemn the act of the Castle Hospital for Women in Colombo for the unfair and inhuman treatment meted out to the HIV positive person by hospital staff on 19th April 2010.

Issuing a Media/ Press release the NYC also states that, they are greatly shocked and regret this act of the hospital staff and would like to emphasize the fact that, more than anything this act has highlighted the manner a young person being refused access to health care and treatment reflects the future generation of this country being at risk. “Youth are not only the future of this country, but today’s citizens”.

You can download the original state ment here

The Chaos Within… ‘Irida Pola’

Anuradhapura. The city of kings. Forgotten and re-remembered ruins. Temples and trees offering the devout all they desire… even peace. Just for a moment. Lost in the smells and bells of burning coconut oil and flowers that decay slowly as their fragrance drifts on a quiet wind from nostril to nostril…

Anuradhapura Sunday Market (Irida Pola). Screeching vendors. Riotous colour. Where sickly smells of fresh and rotting fruit compete. Stagnant pools of floating fish scales. Life milling together with life as bargains are sought and bags bulge, misshapen with produce. Into this chaos descended 52 TWATS (31 TWATS from the Anuradhapura district, and 21 TWATS from Colombo, who being the twats they are, had traveled for five hours in a sardine can on wheels).

The Sunday market or ‘Irida Pola’ is not just a melting pot… it is a cauldron of gooey, lumpy, tasty, nasty Sri Lanka. It is a frontline. It is where people are! A place where we can tick the boxes of young and old and everything in between… there is no better place to engage with unwitting ignorance and related prejudice. Fifty two twats were soon lost within, finding their way, probing and questioning and taking HIV to the Sunday shopper, when she least expected it.

Would they be reluctant to participate in quizzes? Would they fling our leaflets into the gutter? Would they wear a red ribbon to support people living with HIV? Would they understand?

These were our fears… our concerns, and in the end our realities that day. People were rushed and did not always stop to fill the quiz. People grabbed flyers reflexively and some did find their way to a crumpled grave on the pathway. And as for wearing a ribbon… here was our greatest challenge of the day. It was as if the pin we were using was tipped with HIV and that we were there with the express purpose of sticking it into them. The myth of HIV filled injections lying predatorily on seats in cinemas and buses have had their desired effect.

But the twats continued undeterred, rising to this challenge as only a twat can in the face of cultural excuses and hurriedness – need to get home! Questionnaires started to fill up. Even questions that included anal sex were ticked. Those expecting another mundane promotion on a leaflet were instead confronted with GET TESTED for HIV! And soon there were these ribbons that fluttered on vendors and shoppers like little crimson butterflies.

The disruptive theatre teams pushed forward. Questioning and arguing and creating a general stir that allowed for crowds to gather and listen to modes of transmission, myths, the possibility of living full lives with HIV, the sadness of stigma and discrimination.

In the end we had close to one thousand questionnaires to take home from a footfall of thousands. Nothing? Something? A real beginning. The beginning of our Pola Strategy. A strategy that will be refined. A strategy that will allow us to engage with real people. If we are to change perceptions and dispel myths, in the end there is nothing better than a discussion, over a cup of tea or even the sweet juice of an orange king coconut. People listen more when a face is before them, a face that is passionate, and faces that clearly believe it is worth spending their Sunday talking to other faces about HIV. Despite the hurriedness, despite the culture question, we found a willingness to listen… an acceptance that WE need to know more about HIV. Not one twat experienced any rejection beyond a shake of the head, or feigned deafness.

And so… as if by accident, the ‘Irida Pola’ campaign has just begun. Every city, town village has a market day, be it Sunday or another day of the week… now imagine us hiring out a space too at this market, where we put on display our wares… be it counselors, or necklaces made at IDH, or IEC material or condoms (under the table to be dispensed like drugs until the day comes that we can dispense them over the counter), where we fan out and infect others with our enthusiasm and passion and knowledge… and why limit it to sexual and reproductive health? Imagine what a team of twats can do for this country by connecting with real people, by using tools like disruptive theatre to address prejudices beyond HIV? And most importantly… to LISTEN to what people who go to the ‘Irida Pola’ have to say… because it is in listening that we learn what we need to say.

It helps being a twat. You never know what you may stumble on to…

Hans Billimoria

Breaking the Silence

Volunteers at the end of the programme facing for a group photo.

The First Candlelight memorial event under the banner “Together we are the solution”, a first of a series of 6 such events, which will lead up to World AIDS Day and beyond, took place last week at Excel World in Colombo. This series of events that will be implemented in 6 areas across Sri Lanka, including Anuradhapura, Kandy, Batticoloa, Negombo and Galle,  is aimed to raise awareness on Sexual and Reproductive Health, how HIV is spread, combat the stigma faced by people living with HIV, and dispel myths and misconceptions about HIV using interactive  and innovative tools using youth facilitators. The initiative funded by UNAIDS, and being implemented by a coalition that brought together 15 organizations including Positive Hopes Alliance, Lanka + (PLHIV Support organization), The Salvation Army, EQUAL GROUND, Alcohol and Drug Information Centre (ADIC), AIESEC, Save Lanka Kids, Beyond Borders, Companions on a Journey, The Youth committee of the Family Planning Association of Sri Lanka, National Youth Coalition Sri Lanka (NYCSL), PANOS, Plan International, World Vision and The Women’s Support group.,

Posters communicating key messages dispelling myths relating to the stigma and discrimination faced by People Living with HIV (PLHIV) such as their ability to live normal lives were displayed in Excel World.

Trained youth volunteers conducted quizzes, and organised games such as risk or no risk, designed to test public knowledge and to help educate people about transmission of HIV aids. The game Risk or No Risk showed that many people had believed that a person can contract HIV through kissing an HIV+ person, or even by eating food prepared by a HIV+ chef. Many people who played were ignorant of the fact that many people contract HIV from unfaithful spouses. Participants were made aware of their misconceptions at the end of the game, and the actual modes of how HIV spreads were explained to them, as well as the measures which could be taken to stop the virus being transmitted.

Amongst the many activities conducted were a poster creation competition, where the best poster would be chosen for a programme that will be organized by UNAIDS for World Aids Day which falls on 1^st December and a graffiti floor so that the shoppers could write down messages, thoughts and responses to issues such as condom use, and how they would respond if one of their friends were to contract HIV. There was also the ‘Where do you stand?’ game, in which players decided that, if anything, they would do to avoid becoming infected by HIV. Most people said that they would either try and be faithful to their partners or use condoms as a key method of protective sex.

While the morning and early afternoon saw small numbers of participants, numbers picked up significantly in the latter half of the afternoon, and despite the fact that many people had misconceptions about HIV, they were all willing to learn from the volunteers, and show support to PLHIV by wearing the AIDS red ribbon. The closing event for the days programme, candlelight memorial, commenced with innovative play examining the prejudice that PLHIV face in Sri Lanka, and outlined how the vicious cycle happens: ’Silence’, ‘ignorance’, ‘fear’, ‘stigma’, ’iscrimination’ and ‘death’, after which everyone present, including volunteers and guests alike, took part in a pledge to educate each other about the discrimination faced by PLHIV.

One of the popular celebrities, Randhir spoke about the importance of raising awareness about HIV and AIDS and ‘packaging’ these messages to young people in a way that is familiar to them, “on their IPods” in effect. He then lit the first lamp on the stage… (so and so from such organization) followed suit in remembering those who had lost their lives to HIV and AIDS, not only in Sri Lanka but across the world.

The next programme will be conducted on 26 July at the Anuradhapura. Contact Prathiba on 0715869955 or Milinda on 0772543307.

The Chaos Within… TWATS

52 young people have come together and identified themselves as TWATS!

Together We Are The Solution.

Twat – noun vulgar meaning vulva.

Twat – noun slang meaning idiot.

Definitely derogatory! Yet… I find this empowering. In the field of HIV, Sex and Sexuality, in South Asia especially, we need idiots who are willing to put themselves forward to be identified by their willingness to talk openly about HIV. Idiots? Yes, idiots. With the ethos of Dostoevsky, an Idiot is one that does not conform to social and cultural expectations. If we are to build a team of young people in Sri Lanka who will be advocates for the rights of people living with HIV (PLHIV) and our very real, yet oft ignored, sexual minorities, and advocates for the rights of young people to enjoy access to accurate and frank sex education (moving past teachers requesting us to read that chapter at home because it won’t come for the exam), then we have to be willing to be an idiot.

Irony aside, is it foolish to speak about HIV awareness in a country that enjoys the lowest HIV prevalence in the region?

No. It is foolishness not to. The time for slapping ourselves on the back about not having a significant number of PLHIV (thereby playing a dangerous game that allows those who live with HIV to be reduced to faceless numbers, and so forgotten and ignored) is past. Why not flip the focus and take the necessary steps to ensure that Sri Lanka remains a low prevalent country? HIV infections increase every year… yet sadly those who are identified with HIV belong to low socio-economic groups (they are the only PLHIV willing to come forward out of NEED) and although over 90% of PLHIV in our country have contracted HIV through unprotected, condomLESS, heterosexual sex, it is still wrongly perceived as a gay disease.

This is why we need Dostoevsky’s Idiots. This is why we need our young team of twats. We need to go out there and engage with people, to shake them free of misconceptions that cling with the tenacity that only ignorance and half-boiled information allows. We need to put an end to the silence that veils so many discussions on sex and sexuality, relegating sex and sexuality to no more than vulgar innuendo or at best a discussion on the relative merits of the latest porn star.

I salute our young and not so young team of TWATS. I am proud to be one of you.

HB

“Inspiring civil society to challenge the misconceptions, ignorance, fear and stigma surrounding HIV”

Launched in November 2006, Wake Up Pune is a coalition of NGOs and representatives from civil society (just like us) working to spread awareness about HIV and AIDS in the city of Pune, India.

Official figures report that in Jan-Oct 2007, 18,039 people in the city of Pune were tested for HIV at government testing centres and of these, 12.27% tested positive. These figures exclude the thousands of people already living with HIV in Pune, along with those who are as yet unaware of their HIV+ status.

Silence, Ignorance, Fear, Stigma and Discrimination fuel the spread of the virus in this community. So many people are dying of a preventable and treatable condition because they are afraid of accessing the correct information and resources that can save their lives! Stigma and discrimination – from peers, colleagues, friends, family – lock people living with HIV (PLHIV) into a state of denial and silence about their condition. Often, this prevents PLHIV from seeking help until it’s too late.

Not only Pune, but Sri Lanka needs to wake up and change its attitude, of low prevalence and low risk. We need to become more positive and open about HIV, not only to prevent further transmission, but to also better the lives of the many neglected and stigmatized individuals living with and affected by HIV.

HIV does not discriminate. We do. Let’s put an end to this vicious cycle!