If I kept it to myself - World YWCA

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If I kept it to myself responsible sexual behaviour, relieving their doubts and fears. I attended a school where working with the community was very important. I was always involved in social activities such as missions and solidarity campaigns. This helped me develop skills such as good communication, assertiveness and leadership. In my vocational training, I reinforced these skills and developed an interest in sharing experiences and meeting people. I think this put me in a good position when I started to work on the prevention of HIV and AIDS. I was able to focus on the people I counselled instead of focusing on the problem or situation itself. The number of people getting infected by HIV is increasing year after year and the most vulnerable are young people. As a university, it is a priority for us to deal with the issue head on since we are in charge of young people in this vulnerable age group. Programma Alerta was initiated in 1992 through the leadership of the late Dr. Monica Cornejo, a professor at the University of Valparaiso. I joined the programme in 2002 as they began preparations for events to commemorate World AIDS Day. In preparation for the main event, we organised weekly meetings with guest speakers, group activities, and visits to other university groups working on the same issue. With other students, we shared our life experiences, behaviour changes in light of HIV and AIDS, and our feelings and thoughts on the preventive training programmes we were involved with. 32 At the end of the school year, we select forty students from each university to become monitors, ten of whom are given active roles in the programme. Every year, these monitors work with at least four schools with approximately 50 students in each class, reaching over 200 students. A monitor is required to be an active agent among the students, using the skills learnt during training to sensitize fellow students on HIV and AIDS issues. However, participation is low because of academic responsibilities. We do not ask the monitors or other participants their HIV status. We realise it is a personal decision to disclose one’s HIV status, but if a student is open about being HIV positive, we provide all the information we have and we support them psychologically and give medical orientation. Our main message is to make students aware that anybody can get infected if they do not take preventative measures. Young people must be more responsible regardless of their sexual orientation, socio-economic background or educational level. Born: 1976 Country: Chile Organisation: Programma Alerta Campaigns for: HIV awareness building among young people
Young women intervene in a world with AIDS Nakibuule Sylvia I educate people from all walks of life about my status and positive living. I want them to learn so that they don’t follow my path. I am 27 years old and living positively with HIV. I have four children, three of whom I had with my first husband. I dropped out of school in 1992, in my senior year, when I was 14 years old. My father, who has 16 children and two wives to look after, couldn’t afford to pay our school fees. Our family was a typical poverty stricken one. Over 10 of us were told to drop out after our father was laid off from his job and there was no other income generating activity to keep us in school. Those in lower primary were spared since their fees were much lower. The rest of my siblings who dropped out of school began looking after themselves by fetching water for people who paid them; and all the girls got married to the village boys and men. The man I got married to was a friend of my brothers and both my parents knew him since he always came home to visit. He was a fisherman. I was 15 years old when my parents married me off; Robert was 20. This was in 1993. We didn’t have an official function; he only came home for my parents and family to say goodbye and to caution him to look after me well. He didn’t pay any dowry, but my family asked him and his family for ongoing financial assistance. I had my first three children from this marriage. However, in 1999 when my third child was only a month old, my husband died in a motorcycle accident. I was left with nothing. We didn’t have any tangible assets; we only had household property, which was shared by in-laws. I had three children to take care of and my parents back home were looking to me for their upkeep. Being a housewife and a young girl, I had to go back to the village where my parents lived. In the village, life was so difficult that we barely had soap to wash the children’s clothes. We had bananas in the gardens, so I decided to sell them in Kampala, the capital of Uganda. I used the 33
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