HIV and Aids Activists say the key to beating the pandemic is prevention……..and you can only have prevention through education. That's the idea behind a pilot project from the Anglican Church. The plan is introduce HIV and Aids education in the syllabus in their schools from kindergarten all the way up to fourth form.
The training of teachers from the 8 pilot schools began last year. The last set of teachers being trained are those from the infant division. General Manager of Anglican Schools Carol Babb spoke to us about why infant school students should be learning their HIV along with their ABCs.
Carol Babb, General Manager of Anglican Schools
"The teachers will be equipped with the information to help them to go back to their schools to teach the young children about HIV and Aids and how it is a dreadful disease and what they can do at their level to help to prevent this disease.
One of the things we are going to start at the infant division is to teach the children about their bodies and how important it is for them to take care of it and to be aware about good touch and bad touch at this very tender age. You know that HIV and Aids is contracted through sex so we will not talk to them about sex but we will teach them about good touch and bad touch and what they should allow people to do with their bodies."
The church received funding for the pilot project but they hope to get additional funding to introduce it into all their schools.
And as part of that project, the church held a poster and poetry competition among the participating schools in the upper divisions. The task was to write
a poem and design a poster around the topic of abstinence and stigma and discrimination. Kenner Requena from St. Andrew's Anglican School in Cayo wrote the winning poem and the class at Queen's Square Anglican School designed the winning poster. The poem will be published widely but there are bigger plans for the poster. The church plans to convert it into a large billboard which will be placed in the yard of St. John's Cathedral.
