Posts filed under 'AIDS'
Date: Today, Friday April 18th 2008
Time: 1400 GMT, 1700 Nairobi, 1600 Sweden, San Francisco 0700, New York 1000, New Delhi 1930
Venue: http://irc2.globalvoicesonline.org/chat/irc.cgi
This afternoon, I am talking part in and helping host a Rising Voices chat on the HIV/AIDS and Citizen Media, to which you are all invited. The main chat host is Serina (Kipepeo Nyeusi). Rising Voices is the outreach arm of Global Voices. Rising Voices aims to extend the benefits and reach of citizen media by connecting online media activists around the world and supporting their best ideas.
Recently Kenya has made big strides in the fight against HIV/AIDS for example in 2006 the estimated adult HIV prevalence rate was 5.!% down from a peak of 9% in 1997/1998. The number of annual deaths from HIV/AIDS in Kenya has dropped from a peak of 120,000 in 2003 to 85,000 in 2006. ART programmes have averted about 57,000 deaths since 2001.
However the still much to do and 85,000 people is a lot of people.
(Figures from National HIV Prevalence in Kenya written by The National Aids Control Council and STD Control Programme. Nairobi, Kenya June 2007.)
What can we as bloggers/readers of blogs/generators and users of citizen media do to help in the fight against HIV/AIDS? As they saying goes, we may not all be infected but we are all affected. Please note the examples I give are from Kenya as that is the country I know best, but this chat is open to everybody and I see from the Rising Voices email list that some of our brothers and sisters in Latin America will be joining us which is brilliant. This chat is open to all!
Please join us today at: 14.00 GMT for our online chat.
Date: Today, Friday April 18th 2008
Time: 1400 GMT, 1700 Nairobi, 1600 Sweden, San Francisco 0700, New York 1000, New Delhi 1930
Venue: http://irc2.globalvoicesonline.org/chat/irc.cgi
HIV/AIDS & Citizen Media: Proposed Agenda:
- Organization Involvement – What we hear, what we see, how we perceive it
- Importance of Citizen Media
- How can we ensure we focus on stories that main stream media avoids?
- How do we ensure that we focus on the human element of the story?
- Should our main role be telling the story or empowering those affected to use the tools we are using to tell their stories direct?
- What can we learn from others experiences on different parts of the planet?
- Technicalities / Technical challenges
- How do we select whom to approach to case studies for the project?
- How do we approach those we select?
- How do we deal with possible initial suspicion?
- How do we deal with language barriers?
- What computing tools are available?
- How can we best utilise these tools?
- Do these tools have any cost implications?
- Legal Issues
- What steps will we take to ensure we have consent from third parties documented?
- Will material be covered by copyright?
- If so who will own the copyright?
See you there!
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Friday, April 18th, 2008 at 1:34 PM
… a word about grandmothers. They have emerged as the heroes of Africa. The physical ravaging of extended families and the desperate poverty of communities means that grandmothers step in when there’s no one else to tread. I wonder if such a situation has ever occurred before in organised society … in the instance of Africa today, these old and unimaginably frail women often look after five or ten or fifteen kids, enduring every conceivable hardship for the sake of their grandchildren, alongside additional numbers of other abandoned waifs who wander the landscape of the continent. The trauma of the grandmothers equals that of the orphans; in fact, every normal rhythm of life is violated as grandmothers bury their own children and then look after their orphan grandchildren … that’s not the end of it. When the grandmothers die, there’s no one coming up behind, and so you have the phenomenon of what we call “child-headed households” or “sibling families”, where the oldest child is the head of the household.
From Race Against Time, 2005 CBC Massey Lectures, by Stephen Lewis
Africans make a big deal of family, of the community, of brotherhood, of sisterhood, of kinship. We believe we are all our brother’s keeper. And rightly so. I sincerely believe that it is through these social structures that Africa’s solutions will be found. The doctrine of individualism, every man for himself, would destroy us faster than any pandemic we face today.
The group of people that symbolise above any other group, this unselfishness, this sacrifice for community, the group that is the rock of African societies up and down the continent, that provides a family home, a sympathetic ear, a lesson in discipline. The group without whom African society today would NOT exist are whom I’ve given the Mentalacrobatics Person of the Year 2006.
The Mentalacrobatics person of the Year: The African Grandmother.
I love you all and I appreciate you all.
Previous Mentalacrobatics Person of the Year:
2005 - Mzee Kimani Nganga Maruge
2004 – Sven Goran Eriksson
2003 - Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf
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Sunday, December 31st, 2006 at 9:46 PM
The rain stayed away and the sun was out for the marking of World AIDS Day 2006 at Kenyatta International Conference Centre in Nairobi. What can be said on AIDS has been said. Instead check out my pictures from the day including very important people such as the Vice President and cabinet ministers, and even more important people, AIDS orphans. The Mathare Mother’s Development Centre won the 2006 Red Ribbon award and the USD 5,000.00 that goes with it. Well done to them.
In addition, here are two (very basic) video clips of part of some of the presentations by the AIDS orphans (yes next year I’ll be sure to carry a camcorder).
Clip 1 (avi file)
Clip 2 (avi file)
Actually maybe there is something I can say
- Only one politician has publicly taken an AIDS test in Kenya and that was Senator Obama. None of “our” politicians has publicly taken an AIDS test. I feel it would do a whole heap of good if some high profile politicians publicly walked into a VCT centre and took an AIDS test. They do not and should not have to tell us the result of their AIDS test. It is the testing part that is important. It will help remove the stigma/paranoia of taking an AIDS test.*
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When people talk of AIDS orphans we think of very young children under 5. AIDS has been around for 25 years now. I have met AIDS orphans in their late 20’s, early 30’s. Many of them raised their siblings alone. Imagine being a 15 year old in charge of raising your four brothers and sisters.
*I wait to be gladly corrected on this. If you know of any others please let me know.
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Sunday, December 3rd, 2006 at 6:42 PM
The United Nations children’s agency (Unicef) has launched the first computer game in Kiswahili, aimed at halting the spread of HIV and Aids.
The game called “What would you do?” (Ungefanyaje?) takes players through various scenarios to explain the importance of prevention and testing.
The first ever Kiswahili computer game? That didn’t sound right but then again I can not think of any other Kiswahili computer game. Perhaps someone out there knows of one? If so please share it with us. I have not tried Ungefanyaje yet however, by releasing it UNICEF have done well. Instead of perpetuating the lazy stereotype which suggests that you can not get a message across to Africans through technology, UNICEF has adopted technology as a serious tool in the fight against AIDS. If they wanted a much bigger and much wider impact they should have designed a game for mobile phones. Maybe that’s where we’ll come in!
As for the game itself, I’ll wait for a review from our resident gaming expert
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Tuesday, October 31st, 2006 at 4:01 PM
Inspired by Guess’s brilliant example I decided to go and donate blood. A simple thing that I should do more often that I hadn’t done in a while. The donor centre was a pleasant place with lots of smiling people, friendly nurses and free tea, juice and biscuits.
Before they let you anywhere near the refreshments however you have to donate some blood. Before you can donate you have to fill out a questionnaire and that is when you realise that as a African you are a walking potential health disaster. Here are some of the questions I was asked. If you answer yes to any of them your blood is rejected and you told quietly and firmly to bounce like the muppet you are.
Question 1
Which can be broken down, for me at least, to have you shagged a Kenyan in Kenya. Answer yes to that, even if you have passed a HIV test since then, and you will be told to come back to donate when you have managed to stay away from sex for 12 months.
Questions 2
Which since I wasn’t born in the UK is obviously a yes. They ask me where I stayed. I mention Kenya. Again from their reaction it is clear to see that Kenya is not on any safe list they have.
But these two questions are not the ones that lead to me being marched out. That was down to this:
The double whammy
That would be a yes (I blogged about it here). I was quick to point out that my last Malaria attack was over 10 years ago and surely there must be some sort of statute of limitation. After a consultation they informed me that I could donate but I would have to be screened for malaria each and every time I donated. No problems for me there.
Then this question came up:
Again yes. I was back in Kenya over Christmas and I do tend to travel home once a year.
Well that was that for them. If I couldn’t stay away from Kenya for 12 months and insisted on catching malaria there 10 years ago then my blood was probably more lethal than Jack Bauer on a terrorist hunt.
On the plus side they did allow me to have a free biscuit which after all that I felt I deserved. Does anyone know the rules for donating blood in Kenya? All I remember being asked is if I had HIV/AIDS and/or Hepatitis or something like that. But the nurse said the screened the blood for everything anyway and asked me if I wanted to know the results of my HIV test.
If you want to check just how lethal you are you can do the UK blood donor suitability questionnaire here.
I bet none of you get past question 18 
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Wednesday, May 17th, 2006 at 2:30 PM
Sometimes I read a story which is so ridiculous I feel it must be false that I go away and check later expecting a retraction by the news source. But instead of being retracted I find that the stupidity has increased, that is what I am going through now.
South African ex-Deputy President Jacob Zuma said he showered after sex with an HIV-positive woman, thinking this would reduce his risk of being infected … Mr Zuma’s testimony that he did not use a condom during the encounter, despite knowing the woman was HIV-positive, caused dismay among local Aids activists.
Honestly how do you deal with that now? A shower to prevent AIDS? How do you deal with that? Especially when you considered that Zuma at one time headed the South African government’s National Aids Council and the Moral Regeneration Campaign in his role as VP. As in he was the number 1 guy in the fight against AIDS. I walked away thinking this was obviously a false story. Only to bump into this today:
“Why would a man who could be the future president of this country be prepared to take this risk (of contracting HIV)?” state advocate Charin de Beer asked Zuma.
“I had made a decision at that time. I knew the risk that I was facing, but I believed it was small,” Zuma said.
This is madness is scary. A small risk? What the hell? Consider for a moment this man was a heartbeat away from the South Africa presidency.
And we haven’t even talked about his excuses for the alleged rape.
“She had never in the past come to my house dressed in a skirt. Including times when I was living in Pretoria. When she came to me in a skirt after those talks I referred to earlier on, well, it told me something,” he said.
Well.
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Friday, April 7th, 2006 at 6:30 PM
Scientists believe an effective Aids vaccine may be a step closer after studying an unexpected response to the HIV virus in individuals in Uganda who appear immune.
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Tuesday, May 20th, 2003 at 2:14 PM