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| Global University - Unit 2 - HIV/AIDS |
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| Dr Tatsuo Hayashi opens up a lecture on HIV/AIDS in Africa with some catchy djembe beats, supported by onboard percussion group, 'Sound Fountain' |
As Peace Boat sailed around the coasts of Kenya
and South Africa, the Global University (GU) program focused on the
multi-faceted issue of HIV/AIDS, which is eroding social stability
and economic development in sub-Saharan Africa more than anywhere
else in the world. Medical doctor and long term NGO health aid worker,
Tatsuo Hayashi, instructed students in a series of seminars and lectures
from Mombasa to Walvis Bay, via Cape Town. The initial seminar was
discussion based, and students identified why they were interested
in taking the course. While one participant shared with the class
that a family member had died last year from AIDS, and another explained
that his brother is living with HIV, the rest of the 40 person group
acknowledged that they knew very little about HIV/AIDS. One student
commented, 'I'm a nurse in a public hospital in Tokyo, but still I
haven't had much contact with people with HIV/AIDS,' (known as 'PHAs').
Another student said, 'I know that so many people in the world have
HIV/AIDS, but none of the people around me do, so I want to understand
what it's all about and how people are affected by it.' Over the ten
day course, students were not only given a research expert's perspective
on the issues, but also had the rare chance to talk with many PHAs,
as well as those working in educational, advocacy and activist roles
in South Africa. |
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| Two Cape Town women with HIV/AIDS who shared their testimony with us |
Through his work in Ethiopia, Thailand, Brazil
and South Africa, Dr Hayashi brought a wealth of experience and knowledge
to share with GU students. For instance, he showed slides of an 11
year old Brazilian girl with HIV who is cared for at home and provided
with free anti-retroviral (ARV) medication by her government. By contrast,
the story he told of a South African girl he had helped in a children's
AIDS hospice, where no such treatment has been made affordable, resulting
in her premature death last year, was a stark introduction to the
heated issue of access to medication. As GU students learnt, treatment
for HIV depends on where you live and how much you can afford to pay,
rather than medical need. As international AIDS activist, Zackie Achmat
states, 'Poor and working class people [in South Africa] die because
they cannot afford to buy life.' In South Africa, as with many other
countries in the Global South, patents and prices are controlled by
multinational pharmaceutical companies and the drugs are too expensive
for the majority of PHAs. Countries like Brazil and India have had
considerable success in fighting the battle to provide cheaper treatments.
For instance, Brazil sidesteps royalty payments for patent-protected
ARV drugs as its domestic production of generic drugs started prior
to Brazil's signature of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Trade
Related Intellectual Property agreement (TRIPs). In this way, Dr Hayashi
also helped GU students grasp the impact of international trade law
regulations and cases relating to the provision of HIV/AIDS treatment.
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| LoveLife, a special kind of youth centre that is helping curb the spread of AIDS through education and sexual health advice |
The formal learning onboard Peace Boat together
with the exposure study in Cape Town, helped to dispel any preconceptions
about how and why the HIV infection is spread. For instance, HIV is
not a 'gay plague' but overwhelmingly a heterosexual disease, as 75
per cent of worldwide transmission is due to heterosexual sex. Thus
the need for sex education and HIV/AIDS awareness campaigns is a fundamental
part of preventive strategies. The GU students' visit to 'loveLife',
one of a network of adolescent sexual health services, outreach and
support programmes in South Africa (www.lovelife.org.za), confirmed
the value of education and an attitude of openness in trying to combat
the spread of HIV/AIDS. Statistics concerning the HIV/AIDS pandemic
reveal that 22 million people have died from AIDS-related diseases
in the last 20 years. Today, 36 million people are now infected with
HIV worldwide, 25 million of these cases are in sub-Saharan Africa.
A common question is why HIV infection rates vary so dramatically
from part of the world to another? Some students queried whether infection
trends have anything to do with human behaviour. However, following
the two-day HIV/AIDS exposure tour in Cape Town, students better understood
the indisputable connections between poverty, gender and class inequality
with the spread of AIDS. |
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| Zulu Love Letters handmade by Wola Nani PHAs for income generation |
Our visit to community-based organizations (CBO),
'Treatment Action Campaign' (TAC) (www.tac.org.za) and 'Wola Nani'
(www.wolanani.co.za) were an opportunity for students to meet PHAs,
including a 33 year old single mother and a 29 year old self-confessed
'former playboy', who both currently do education-based volunteer
work. Wola Nani provides avenues for skill-training and income generation
for people with HIV/AIDS, so the volunteers we met showed us their
handmade papier mache bowls and beaded crafts as well as shared with
us their feelings about living and working with the virus. Eliminating
stigmas and discrimination among communities and creating an atmosphere
of acceptance are important objectives that people working in small-scaled
NGOs are reportedly making good progress in. For instance, in 1998
an HIV activist was stoned to death in Natal for disclosing to her
own community her HIV positive status. This incident triggered TAC
to produce 'HIV Positive' slogan t-shirts to open up discussion on
the issues, as well as pay solidarity to PHAs. Moreover, a lively
community-awareness event called a 'condom bash', where activists
distribute condoms and promote education relating to HIV/AIDS in a
festival atmosphere, have been well-received in rural and urban areas.
As more and more people are starting to realise, 'You don't have to
be infected to be affected. |
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| Peace Boat's
40th Voyage index |
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PEACE BOAT is an NGO in Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. |
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