Nagpur Municipal Corporation to start schools for HIV-infected Children'

[Guest guest]

Dear Forum members

This is in response to the " Nagpur Municipal Corporation to start

schools for HIV-infected Children' posted on 5th December 2007. The

announcement of Additional Municipal Commissioner Atul Patne of the

Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC), to open a school exclusively for

children living with HIV, is disheartening to thousands of civil society

champions who thought that India had reached certain level of awareness as far

as HIV is concerned. One realizes that NACO is not moving the mainstreaming

agenda at speed due to change in numbers.

But by wasting time in debates and discussions, we are taking India behind where

we had all started working in 1997 in areas of prevention, care, stigma and

discrimination.

Here are the reasons why I am concerned about a special school for

children living with HIV:

How is this special school going to ensure a dignified life for the children

living with HIV by isolating them from their communities?

How is the municipal corporation going to ensure the confidentiality of the

children studying there, and their families?

What next? Is NMC going to institutionalize separate hospital,

playground, cinema theatre, churches and markets for people living with HIV? The

NMC is institutionalising stigma which will create

discrimination. " Subject to the success of this project, the NMC further plans

to start residential schools for these students " I wonder what would be the

measure of success?

Even with air- and water-borne infectious diseases like TB and

Leprosy, India has found that exclusive clinics and hospices create

social isolation and do not benefit people or society. In the case of

daily interaction in schools, HIV is far less infectious than either TB or

leprosy - why is it being treated differently?

Isn't there a responsibility on the senior officers alike Municipal Commissioner

(who is supposed to be representing the cream of the society), to get themselves

educated on the basic minimum of HIV

prevention, treatment, care and life with HIV.

It is clear that NACO has a big role to sensitize important officers who engage

with communities on regular basis. Someone has to start taking action against

the officers who plan to institutionalize stigma and discrimination within the

family, school and community.

Children living with HIV pose no threat to their classmates, and usually need

simple support based on common sense. If children living with HIV are isolated

from their peers, it simply shows that NMC does not understand the basics of HIV

prevention and care.

For more information on supporting children with HIV please refer Building

Blocks: Young Children and HIV, is now online on SETU and can be accessed at:

http://www.aidsallianceindia.net/Main/ViewPublication.aspx?id=634.

In solidarity,

Stanzin Dawa

Advocacy Officer

India HIV/AIDS Alliance

Kushal House, Third Floor,

39 Nehru Place, New Delhi 110 019. India

Switchboard: +91-11-4163 3081 Ext. 133

Fax: +91-11-4163 3085

Email: sdawa@...

Websites: www.aidsalliance.org; www.aidsmap.com