|
|
|||
|
|||
 |
|
|
 |
||||
|
December 10th, 2007, The HIV Support Group and AIDS Awareness, by Jim Newton
They started with less than ten members, each of them willing to declare their HIV positive status and each of them looking to give and receive support from others like themselves. They often met under the solar cells, in the open at the community centre where they could be seen by everyone. Though our counseling and testing grew at a prodigious rate (more than 300 HIV positive people in Ndawana to date), the support group remained relatively small.
Then, somewhere along the line, the group grew to more than 60 members, many on anti-retroviral therapy. The group met at least monthly, to share their experience and to talk about what it’s like to be a person living with HIV/AIDS. The meetings turned into all day events, and they thought it so important that they were willing to come on weekends for meetings. Always there was food and singing.
We decided to have a second AIDS Awareness Day, this time in the village of Mangeni, 18 km. from Ndawana, and the Support Group said they wanted to sing and give testimonials. Moreover, they wanted t-shirts that said I Am HIV Positive. So we got shirts (navy blue with white lettering) for the big day. Getting them all there, along with our teams of managers and health workers and volunteers, meant taking many bakkie loads along the muddy, dangerous road to Mangeni, but people were ready to go, at the community centre, by 6:30 AM.
None of us had heard the Support Group sing together, and none of us had heard their testimonials. But we had heard the Treatment Action Campaign and Doctor’s Without Borders groups do both at our first Awareness Day in 2006, and we knew what a galvanizing effect these groups had on the people of Ndawana. So, when our group came on stage, dancing and singing, we all were crying at the beautiful sound and the energy of our own people taking the lead in breaking down stigma and giving the messages of safe sex and getting tested and getting treated and realizing that a person can live a pretty normal life, even with this deadly disease.
Immediately, the Department of Health (DoH) representatives joined them on the stage, and as one of them (Khumbu Mtinjana) passed by me, she said “You’ve done it!” The singing was beautiful and the testimonials powerful. After their performance, Khumbu said they wanted them at the official DoH AIDS Awareness day at St. Apollinaris the next week, commenting as well that their DoH AIDS Awareness Days were about them talking at the people, while ours was about dancing and poetry and drama and singing, along with the powerful performance of our support group.
Before the group had the chance to perform at St. Apollinaris, Peter Mbona of Men in Partnership Against AIDS, who had been a keynote speaker at our day, phoned and asked if the group could perform at another AIDS Awareness Day in the town of Jolivet. They performed at both places, and were told at both places that their performance had been the highlight of the day.
The people of Ndawana have done it again, and if the group wasn’t energized before all of this, you should see them now. They’re over the moon, these people who just a few years ago were condemned to die a horrible death in a relatively short time. Even though they will eventually die of AIDS related illnesses, they are showing great courage and caring for others in the meantime.
|
||||
