CARE India: $21 mn project to promote AIDS awareness among poor

[Guest guest]

Tuesday July 1 2003 10:15 IST

$21 mn project to promote AIDS awareness among poor

IANS

NEW DELHI: For millions of Indians who engage in unprotected sex

ignorant about the danger of AIDS, here comes a $21 million project

that gives them a second chance at life.

n is a programme by CARE India particularly targeted at high-

risk groups like truckers, migrant labourers and sex-workers.

Launched in the Indian capital's Sanjay Gandhi Transport Nagar

Saturday, n will work in over 45 districts and 21 cities in five

states. It is part of CARE India's new HIV prevention initiative.

The project would be implemented over a six-year period and is

completely funded by the United States Agency for International

Development.

n director Mukesh Kumar says it took around two years for NGOs

to prepare the ground for the project. " The knowledge level on AIDS

among truckers was low although there was this curiosity, " said Kumar.

" Even if they were aware of the disease they refused to talk about it

as sex in India is considered a taboo. "

The project will also work with youth in northwest Delhi's

Jehangirpuri area and female sex workers in the crowded Yamuna Pushta

slum abutting the river.

" Through n we also plan to work with the youth between the age

group of 15 and 24 years, " says Kumar.

CARE and its partners will promote condoms, spread awareness about

sexually transmitted infections and target men and women in the

reproductive age.

The NGOs will use infotainment programmes, dramas and street plays to

attract the labour class of the area.

" Such programmes will add a bit of colour, and education is our best

bet to at least bringing together the community we are targeting, "

said Bejoy Nambiar of CARE.

Delhi Transport Minister Ajay Maken, who inaugurated n, said

although the risk of HIV infection existed for everyone, it was

particularly high among people in places like Transport Nagar where

the population was mobile - both physically and sexually.

The Transport Nagar chapter of the programme will work with truckers,

including drivers, helpers and cleaners; migrant labourers and sex-

workers.

Delhi School of Social Work Society's Sukhad Yatra and Apollo Tyre's

healthcare clinic are two local NGOs involved in the project in

Transport Nagar.

n is designed to contribute to India's National Population

Policy and National AIDS Policy.

The project entails educating people about HIV/AIDS which has

infected around four million people in India, the second highest

numbers in the world after South Africa.

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