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| by Julie Robinson, age 17, École secondaire de l’île, Quebec, |
Jul 12, 2004 |
Three months later …
Paska found a new friend — a Canadian girl who supports her and finds answers to her questions, by surfing the Internet or by getting information from doctors at local community health centres. This gave Paska the courage to form a small group of people who think like her. Paska was able to tell these people everything they didn’t know about AIDS to help them avoid contracting the virus. These people then went from house to house and talked to families in their village. At first, people were reluctant to hear all this about AIDS. But they soon realized they had to work together. They could not ignore the problem any longer. Little by little, through public information sessions, villagers changed their minds. They now saw the distress of their HIV-positive neighbours. Paska and her new adult friends set up a program where village families took in street children orphaned by AIDS. With Paska’s help, some children even found Canadian pen pals. That showed them that people very far away wanted to help them and be their friends. Sometimes, the Canadians could send money to pay for drugs to treat their new friends for AIDS. Paska has now succeeded in rallying the whole village to achieve a single goal: to control the spread of HIV/AIDS. She and her group are taking small initiatives that are making a big difference. For instance, they are setting up condom distribution outlets, answering people’s questions confidentially, through a question box, and holding information sessions.
Paska and her group now have a new goal: to do the same thing in neighbouring villages. They will go from house to house to convince people on a one-to-one basis. They will also hold information sessions. Maybe these villagers will do the same in turn for the next village! They are also receiving help from CARE program officers and a little money from their Canadian friends. If everyone works together, perhaps the movement will spread throughout Zambia.
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