Monday, December 04, 2006

USM’s HIV/AIDS Learning Network and its 2005 campaign in USM

by Stefan Dawson


AIESEC in USM held a HIV/AIDS workshop and campaign in collaboration with Standard Chartered(M) Sdn Bhd, Malaysian AIDS Council and Olympia College Penang to spread awareness about HIV and AIDS to student of USM, Olympia College Penang and even to sex workers in the red-light areas of Georgetown in Penang. This campaign which is pioneered by LC USM and lasted for a duration of 3 months. This project was run by members of the LC and also 3 Interns – Kristina Kloss from Germany, Lora Mae Aquinde from the Philippines and Anna Dubelaar from Canada.

Together with the OC from USM, the interns found information from the internet and adding this to the materials provided by Standard Chartered and Malaysian AIDS Council and used this to spread awareness about AIDS and HIV to some students at USM and Olympia College. The second part of the campaign includes many other interns who were at other LC’s in Malaysia. All the interns involved gathered in Kuala Lumpur to organize a HIV/AIDS conference there. Here is a brief quote from Kristina Kloss from Aachen, Germany about her internship :

“In Penang Lora and I prepared a lot of material for the two-days booth at a local college. We made posters, quizzes, flyers, etc. to raise the people’s attention for our campaign. At the booth we talked to the students about what they know about HIV/AIDS in general and especially about the situation in Malaysia. On the second day of the booth we also conducted interactive sessions to explain more detailed what HIV/AIDS is, what people can do to protect themselves and to raise the awareness on this subject.



After the two first weeks in Penang the next part of the traineeship was planning and organising an HIV/AIDS youth conference in KL. Finally our international team of 10 trainees came together. Our task was to organise and promote the first AIESEC HIV/AIDS youth conference on the 11th and 12th of December in KL. The conference was targeted especially to young Malaysians who often do not know very much about HIV/AIDS. Since there is no sexual education at Malaysian schools it is not spoken openly about sexuality and also HIV/AIDS is a taboo. The number of newly infected people is growing with an alarming rate in Malaysia and especially young people are affected. Against this background the major goal of our conference was to clarify what exactly HIV/AIDS is, how the virus is transmitted and how people can protect themselves and others.

We worked in the AIESEC Malaysia office in Petaling Jaya together with the AIESEC MCs of Malaysia and lived in “Millennium Court” which is a big private student hostel near the University Malaya and not too far from the AIESEC Malaysia office. There were a lot of local as well as international students living there and it had very good facilities e.g. cafeteria, gym, cyber café, laundry, convenience store. We had rooms for two or three persons and boys and girls lived in separate blocks. The rooms were not very big and simple, but we had enough space and our own bathroom. There was no kitchen but since most students do not cook but eat in the cafeteria there was no need for it.

We worked in the AIESEC office, in the cyber café at Millennium Court (when there were not enough free computers in the office) or at booths in different universities promoting the conference. Our work involved all the organisational tasks like finding and booking a venue and a caterer, contacting speakers and sponsors and creating the conference’s programme. But one of the most important and time-consuming tasks was to attract participants by going to universities and colleges setting up interactive booths. That way we increased the awareness of HIV/AIDS and created interest for people to want to come to the conference. We worked closely with the Malaysian AIDS Council and Standard Chartered Bank (our main sponsor) who helped us with their experience and also with materials. My specific job was to be in charge of the agenda and to communicate with the Malaysian AIDS Council and Standard Chartered Bank. I also contacted the speakers and worked on most of the PowerPoint presentations used in the conference.”




As I mentioned earlier the target group is college/university students who are between the ages of 18 and 24. The purpose of targeting this group is because this group of individuals comprise of people who are very curious about the opposite sex and are going through many physical and emotional changes. These changes sometimes can cause people to make wrong decisions when it comes to sexual intercourse. This campaign was aimed at educating the targeted group of individuals about the dangers of HIV transmission through sex and also to challenge their worldview towards people who are already infected with AIDS.

How was all this information passed on? Most of our sessions were activity based. The participants played role games which put them into the position of a victim or a carrier and were made to make decisions which could get them infected or get somebody infected. There were also sketches where the participants acted out certain roles which inadvertently put them into the position of a person involved in making a decision whether to have sex or not. A booth was set up at USM for a week and at Olympia College for 2 days. At the USM booth, people who visited the booth, once having listened to the talk by the persons in charge or Lora the intern, would be allowed to put their painted hand print on a banner which showed their support towards the campaign. At Olympia, the booth set up there was at the main entrance and it was a very good and informative booth with lots of decorations and also condoms which were blown up and hung all around the booth. At the sessions that were held there, condoms were given out to all the participants so that they could learn how to put one on. This was probably the “funnest” part of the programme as girls and guys had to endure the laughs and stares as they slipped the “rubber” on to a very sizeable banana (as in the fruit).



As the OC who was in charge of coordinating the programme I found this a very good learning experience. I also managed to be in close contact with the interns and hence learned a good deal about them irrespective countries and their cultures. I was especially touched by Lora, who was the intern from the Philippines. Before meeting her, my views on homosexuals and AIDS was one which one might call “traditional”. She truly opened my eyes to them and also to the way to treat them. In the Philippines, there are many homosexuals, both male and female, but society in general and the youth there, more importantly, do not mistreat homosexuals like most Malaysian youths do. And as for their relationship to AIDS, I began to understand that they didn't deserve their fate- they were merely under-informed. I now realize the importance of educating everyone but more importantly the youth about the importance of practicing safe sex. This and of course loyalty and abstinence are the 3 main ways AIDS and the spread of HIV can be curbed.

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