Moyiga Nduru
JOHANNESBURG, Dec 1 2005 (IPS) – Millions of children around the world received a lesson, Thursday, in how to deal with something that many will inevitably confront: the AIDS pandemic.
This global initiative, dubbed Lesson for Life , was spearheaded by the London-based Global Movement for Children (GMC) and co-ordinated in individual countries by schools, civic groups and other organisations.
Lesson for Life was also held in 2004, when it attracted 4.3 million participants. This year, about 15 million children from some 60 countries were expected to join in. The event is timed to coincide with World AIDS Day.
A number of African states threw their weight behind the initiative, including Malawi an impoverished Southern African nation with an HIV prevalence rate of 14 percent. About 4,000 of Malawi s 5,168 schools were scheduled to hold lessons for life: Some 10,000 children are taking part in the event nationwide, Kennedy Warren of the United Nations Children s Fund told IPS from Malawi.
Lesson for Life is mostly aimed at children of primary school age.
We teach the children in stages. In primary one where you have six-year-old children, there is very little to do with sex. We teach them to be assertive and not to allow peer pressure to force them into a relationship, said Warren.
We also prepare them on gender issues. We tell them that a boy is not superior to a girl and that children are equal whether they are boys or girls.
Across the border in Zambia, some 40,000 children were said to be participating in the programme.
We want the children to get the correct information in order to protect themselves against AIDS; we don t want them to be deceived. Wanga Saili of the Zambian branch of GMC, a non-governmental organisation, told IPS.
There is a generation that is not infected. We want to protect them.
Echoing Warren s comments, Saili said Lesson for Life programmes in Zambia were carefully tailored to the children s levels of emotional and intellectual development.
We use materials which are appropriate at their age. We produce simple materials with pictures; sometimes we convey the message through plays, she noted.
For older children in upper primary school, usually aged ten years and older, different approaches are used, said Warren.
We introduce them to information on HIV and AIDS: how the virus is transmitted, he noted. This is important for the children whose physiological structures are beginning to change and who have the desire for sex. We introduce them to sex education.
The hope is that this will result in the behavioural change that is crucial for stopping the spread of HIV.
We expect the children to be able to make informed decision, said Warren. We also expect the lessons they are receiving to result in low-risk behaviour and for them to pass on the information to their peers.
Traditional leaders were also invited to participating schools, to ensure their support for the initiative.
There are a lot of positive messages coming from traditional leaders. Many traditional leaders say they will not allow under-aged girls to get married. They are also challenging sexual cleansing rituals which are happening in some parts of the country, Saili said.
These rituals may involve a widow having sex with a relative of her deceased husband, to exorcise the man s spirit.
Some of the children most in need of the information provided by Lesson for Life may not have received it, however, namely those who are orphaned by AIDS or affected by the pandemic in some other way.
In a report issued in October entitled Letting Them Fail: Government Neglect and the Right to Education for Children Affected by AIDS , Human Rights Watch documented how the death toll from HIV had left millions of children without the adult supervision needed to ensure they attended school.
Orphans were more likely to withdraw from school, less likely to be at an age-appropriate grade, and less likely to have limited family resources spent on their education, noted the document, which dealt with children in Uganda, Kenya, South Africa and Tanzania.
Human Rights Watch, a non-governmental group based in New York, accused governments of failing to meet the challenge of educating children made vulnerable by AIDS.
These children have lost enough. They should not be turned away from school and lose their right to an education as well, said Jonathan Cohen, a researcher with the organisation s HIV/AIDS programme.
While civic groups had tried to step into the breach, their efforts alone were not sufficient.
Churches and community-based organisations provide critical support to these children, but these groups frequently operate with little government support or recognition, said the report.
According to Saili, there are between 90,000 and 100,000 AIDS orphans in Zambia, where the adult HIV prevalence stands at 16.5 percent according to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).
Southern Africa is the epicentre of the AIDS pandemic, the countries in this region having posted some of the world s highest HIV prevalence rates.
Looking at Africa as a whole, the picture is scarcely more promising. While sub-Saharan Africa contains just over 10 percent of the global population, it houses more than 60 percent of people who have contracted HIV, says UNAIDS.