14.7.11
At Think Global, we are committed to engaging people, particularly young people to think about global issues. We believe that education about global issues should foster:
• critical and creative thinking;
• self-awareness and open-mindedness towards difference;
• understanding of global issues and power relationships; and
• optimism and action for a better world.
This approach can be challenging for many schools at the best of times but it can be especially difficult when we look at issues where students have to examine their behaviour as a result of their learning.
The issue of HIV and AIDS education is highly complex because it requires learning about sexual health to prevent the spread of this disease, as well as an understanding of the development issues that arise as a result of the spread of the disease.
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). It is a relatively new disease, genetic research shows that it originated in Africa in the nineteenth century, but it was officially recognised in the United States in 1981 by the
Centre for Disease Control and Prevention
Over 30 million people have died from AIDS related causes since the beginning of the epidemic in 1987. Today about 1% of the world’s population is living HIV, this means that about 33 million people are living with HIV. In the UK, 85,000 people are living with HIV.
The disease has been identified as a key issue in the Millennium Development Goals:
HIV/AIDS is much more than a health issue. It has become a major development problem. By spreading fast, and mostly among young people and working-age adults, it cripples a country’s economy, society and family structure. According to a World Bank study, when 8% or more of a population becomes infected with HIV, the growth of the economy slows down. This is because the labour force is reduced, which puts pressure on the country’s already overwhelmed government, as well as its economic and health care systems.
So what conversations should students and teachers be having about this issue?
Some of the challenges about HIV and AIDS education from a global dimension perspective are as follows:
Prevention: with just under 1% of the world population living with HIV and AIDS, we can be lulled into thinking that this is not an important issue. 12 million of the 33 million people infected with HIV are aged between 15 and 24 – this means that 2690 young people are infected daily with HIV/AIDS. Young people need to be aware of how to protect themselves and be confident in sharing that message with friends and their peers. Supporting awareness raising projects in local communities on
World AIDS day can be a good way of doing this.
Tackling poverty: HIV and AIDS are now concentrated in a few countries across the world.
This data from Gapminder shows the rates of HIV infection and the link to a country’s economic success (or GDP). Given the information we have, what should the world do to tackle HIV and AIDS? Should we focus on countries which have a large percentage of their population or focus on countries where there are a lot of people infected but this does not constitute a large percentage of the population? What are the strengths and weaknesses of these approaches?
Understanding the human story: it is important to understand the human face of HIV and AIDS and there is an excellent resource that can be used in schools that was developed in Kenya called
Mukutano Junction. This resource is a Kenyan TV Soap opera that tackles a range of development issues including HIV and AIDS and is aimed at Key Stage 3 & 4 students.
For more resources on teaching HIV and AIDS in the classroom, check out this page on the
Global Dimension website.
Ade Sofola