Re:Incorporation of HIV/AIDS in the syllabus in the medical collages

[Guest guest]

Re: Dr.Sanjaya Saxena's mailR " Incorporation of HIV/AIDS in the

syllabus in the medical collages "

I totally agree - though there is a lot of chit-chat regarding IEC

initiatives for various sectors of society, there is a strong

resistance to incorporating HIV/AIDS related information as part of

an organized and sustainable reproductive health/sex education

curriculum for young people in schools and colleges.

My development media group, Ideosync, has been working for the past

six years on a RH/sex education initiative covering reproductive

anatomy, puberty/adolescence, pregnancy, contraception, STIs and

HIV/AIDS. The focus is on the creation of a set of video modules and

a facilitators guide which teachers and/or facilitators working with

young people can use in group situations in and out of school to

create a vibrant and open discussion on these subjects.

As a part of this initiative, I have not only worked on the modules

themselves, but in workshops with young people in a variety of

schools - as well as with parents and teachers. I can safely attest

to the fact that not only are information levels on HIV/AIDS still

abysmally low (we're in the process of collating some of our

statistical data generated as part of our formative research on the

latest module series), the bottleneck lies among the adults and

policy makers.

While the young people we've worked with are more than happy to

express their ideas and views, it is the parents and teachers who

constantly make excuses regarding why sex education cannot

successfully become a part of the school currciculum.

This attitude carried over into the policy makers' attitude, where

piecemeal initiatives continue to take precedence over large scale,

sustainable, additions to the educational curriculum - much of which,

in my opinion, is due to an unverbalized perosnal fear of the subje!

cts in question.

In more than one agency I've worked with, I've noticed members on

reviewing committees react to these modules more as individuals (in

terms of their concern about whether their own chilcren are talking

like the young people featured in the films) than as policy makers

with an eye on the broader needs of the social whole.

Best, N.Ramakrishnan

Ideosync Media Combine

E-mail: ideosync@...