The National Aids Commission wants to bring stigma and discrimination to an end and it needs your help. While we've all heard the figures of how many Belizeans are dying and how many are affected by HIV and Aids, even worse than the numbers is the way society treats those affected. A three-day consultation on a strategy to eliminate stigma and discrimination concluded today and we got a chance to see the face of discrimination, up close.
Keith Swift Reporting,
34-year-old Allen Garbutt is living with HIV. The disease is one thing, he accepts that. But for him, his real fight is against the stigma and discrimination he faces daily.
Allen Garbutt, Living With HIV
"I'm comfortable with it. I've accepted it which for me has been one of the biggest things to accomplish, to accept it. Its there and I have to deal with it and I can look at myself and laugh everyday. I am quite comfortable with it. I still get bad screwed up faces. I still at times get on the bus and people move from beside me but I just think its lack of information and there's a lot of ignorance still out there."
Dr. Rovem Deadad, Communications Consultant - PANCAP
"You don't want people to be ashamed of either testing to find out if they have HIV, or if they do have Aids, to be ashamed to seek treatment because that's what stigma does."
Dr. Roven Deadad is a communications consultant with CARICOM's PANCAP. This week he along with 40 journalists, counselors, and others discussed how to eliminate stigma and discrimination. He says the first step is to see HIV and Aids for what it is: a disease, not a curse.
Dr. Rovem Deadad,
"The media used to talk about this deadly disease, as if the moment you caught it, no one should even touch you, and it was a life sentence. Its not that and its certainly not that in this day and age. Its important to make HIV/Aids just another illness, a serious, dangerous illness yes and it should be prevented at all costs. But once a person has come down with it, that's an honorable citizen of a country and should be treated that way."
The National Aids Commission plans to leave this workshop with communication strategy on how to stay on message.
Ruth Jamarillo, National Aids Commission
"We have not come together to look together at what are our priority groups, to look at what is the message we're sending out there and what it is we are trying to achieve. This is a example of harmonization which is the buzz word for our strategic plan. We want all partners on board."
Dr. Rovem Deadad,
"Out of the planning that comes out of this particular program, the CARICOM PANCAP program that has funding from Global Fund will then actually come in and support the activities that we have developed here."
Two percent of the Belizean population has tested positive for HIV, but the unreported figure is believed to be far greater than that.
