International Alert Series: The BIG Issues - Fighting HIV and AIDS

What's required to achieve an HIV and AIDS free world
Sister Pak Poy presentation

Tuesday 4 April 2006

Presented by World Vision Australia and AusAID and supported by The Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Centre, UniSA

Sister Patricia Pak Poy, Sisters of Mercy, Adelaide

Over the last fifteen years I have been active in the Campaign to Ban Landmines – we saw immediately that we needed a total global ban on these explosive weapons which kill and maim, that action was needed on a government and international level, that production had to cease, that land had to be cleared of these victim-activated weapons and that victims/survivors had to be rehabilitated and re-integrated into their communities. Something had to be done! It still has to be done. We realise we still have to act now for a mine free world and that every step counts.

Hope Adelaide has learned the same lesson for joining the fight against the HIV/AIDS pandemic, an explosive pandemic that calls us to see the problem and to act now; and to realise that every step, no matter how small, can count for good in helping prevent the spread of the disease and in assisting those living with HIV/AIDS Our neighbours help collect 5 cent cans, and the local parish has joined the fund-raising; but of course the pandemic warrants billions to be spent globally to address the ignorance and fear in the world community, to provide for medical research on the production of vaccinations, medications and treatments, and to support people living with AIDS and their communities.

Hope Adelaide Inc is a small group of volunteers based here in Adelaide. There are 10 of us – a mixed bag of men and women, young and old, ethnically, politically and religiously diverse – but standing united on the ground of all we hold in common: the good or our people.

Four years ago, a couple of young members asked if we could help address the AIDS problem facing the Burmese community in Mizoram in India – people from remote areas in Burma now in a foreign state, though with some ancient cultural ties with the local Miso people. As they said: Many “do not know there is such a thing as AIDS, don’t know how you get it, and don’t know what to do about it.” We had no money, no great expertise and not much capacity beyond the 10 of us to address this enormous problem facing the world. So we ‘did what we could’: we identified a small local group that was willing to undertake a project with us, we found out some of the facts of the global and local situation; we researched what was already happening in Mizoram and who was missing out on the action; we asked what was needed, and together we set about designing a simple project for which we could seek some financial support.

We found that the target groups in Mizoram, as in many places, were the intravenous drug users, the sex workers and the ‘truckies’. However, the main group of Burmese in Mizoram were Chin people many of whom were migrants across a rather porous border, and some of whom were refugees and others of whom were itinerant workers trying to earn a living for themselves and their families. The community in the larger towns could be easily found, but many were in isolated villages in remote areas – and Mizoram is a mountainous state, with few roads, few vehicles and fewer amenities.

With the local community group which now has developed into the Integrated Voluntary Public Health Education Network, we sought funding for a pilot project on basic education on HIV/AIDS. Caritas Australia agreed to fund the pilot, and on the results of the evaluation agreed to fund this and a similar project in another area for three years.

Teams of field workers are given very basic training in the nature of the disease – of what HIV/AIDs is, how it is spread, how it can be prevented, what treatment and services are needed, advised, and available; workers are given some basic counselling skills, and encouraged to promote behaviours that help prevent the spread of the disease. Training is given by experts from the hospitals, welfare agencies and other organizations servicing the Mizo and Indian population. Quarterly meetings keep up the skills development and the morale of the workers.

Large group seminars were found to be unsuitable for the particular target groups and communities. With their coordinators the workers have devised and refined a house-to-house method and methodology, visiting villages, isolated communities and work camps in teams of men and women, sometimes working with families, groups of families and young people. The use of informal conversation and discussion, based on the brochure which is left with each person, is more effective and culturally appropriate than seminars or public meetings, though in a village, a meeting of all the people is held to conclude the group’s visit. The people ask such basic questions as:

• What are the main symptoms of AIDS?
• Do condoms prevent HIV infection? What percentage prevention?
• How long does the HIV virus survive in a dead body?
• How long do patients survive after infection by AIDS virus?
• What percent of infected mothers infect their child?
• Can one be infected through sharing syringes? Shaving razors?

The information is basic; public services are limited – district hospitals need to be developed as AIDS clinics to facilitate testing and follow-up treatment where necessary. In Mizoram, there is a network of organizations offering AIDS education and treatment, but the Burmese and Chin-speaking people need to have the information in their own language – and in their isolated locations. Workers have to walk in 5 or 15 kms to the village or climb narrow mountain paths to reach the isolated work camp; they need to stop over-night or over-fortnight with the communities and this presents its own demands and hardships – but the affirmation received indicates the appreciation of the people served. Behaviour changes – greater care with syringes, safe sexual practice – are to be promoted – but the information is hard to obtain from isolated and transient populations. The lessening of fear of people living with AIDS instead of immediate ostracism, resumption of traditional funeral practices among villagers, instead of the immediate burning of the corpses and the belonging of the deceased, all indicate a learning that is real but often hard to measure.

Hope Adelaide has learned much from this project and from the other projects it has undertaken. We can affirm that everyone can contribute to this fight against AIDS – knowledge of the situation, (and this includes economic, political and cultural situations), identification of points of creative intervention that are possible to a given individual or group, and a willingness to use the power of one with others to achieve a result that will build the common good.

Patricia Pak Poy rsm
Hope Adelaide Inc

Previous events

• Beyond Tsunami Tuesday 19 July 2005
• Make Poverty History Tuesday 6 September 2005
• Women's Rights in Development Tuesday 7 February 2006

While the views presented by speakers within the Hawke Centre public program are their own and are not necessarily those of either the University of South Australia or The Hawke Centre, they are presented in the interest of open debate and discussion in the community and reflect our themes of: strengthening our democracy – valuing our cultural diversity – and building our future.