THE FACE OF HIV/AIDS:
People with HIV/AIDS as educators
Why use HIV positive individuals?
| “This is what happened to me; don’t let it happen to you.” |
According to the Office of National AIDS Policy¹s Youth and HIV/AIDS: An American Agenda, “One in four new HIV infections in the U.S. are estimated to occur among people under the age of 20. An estimated 40,000 to 80,000 Americans become infected with HIV each year, or an average of 110 to 220 a day. Under current trends, that means that between 27 and 54 young people are infected with HIV each day, or more than two young people every hour.”
Clearly, it is imperative to educate young people about HIV. But it is difficult to convince young people that they must be very careful to avoid behaviors that place them at risk for HIV infection – partly because they cannot see the consequences of infection in their peers. Because of the virus¹ long latency period, most teens who are infected with HIV will not become symptomatic until they are in their twenties.
An educator with HIV can “put a face” on the disease. When a person living with HIV comes into the classroom and talks about his or her experience, teens begin to understand that HIV can happen to real people with ordinary lives, and that when infection occurs it is devastating. He or she is someone who struggled with an unexpected diagnosis, and struggles daily with the physical results of the damage to the immune system, with medication schedules, with emotional ups and downs, and the difficult job of telling family and friends. This message is powerful: This is what happened to me; don¹t let it happen to you.
- An HIV positive person can give a compelling, first-hand account of what it is like to live with HIV.
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- Students may begin to see themselves as belonging to the pool of people potentially at risk when they have something in common with the speaker.
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- Students have a chance to identify – perhaps for the first time – parallel risks in their own lives.
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- As students hear about behavior that resulted in infection, they may think about their own behavior more carefully.
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- Discussions about HIV and related subjects (drug or alcohol use, sexual risk-taking, etc.) are often catalyzed by a presentation.
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