Educating peers about HIV/AIDS

Peers play an important role in the self esteem of HIV/AIDS- affected children. Often the separation between orphaned children and children with parents is obvious in the classroom. One way of integrating the children is through school clubs.

Talking to children about HIV/AIDS may seem like a desirable thing to do, but parents must overcome many barriers, both individually and within society, before disclosure becomes an option.

In Zimbabwe as well as many African countries, AIDS is such a taboo subject that people will refer to it as “the disease” or anything else besides “AIDS”. Most children whose parents have died of an AIDS-related illness attribute death to such illnesses as tuberculosis, poisoning or diarrhoea.

It is not clear whether children really believe their parents died of these illnesses, or whether they simply say so to protect the family from the possible embarrassment and stigma that HIV/AIDS carries

The views of parents differ on whether or not to disclose their HIV status to their children. Disclosure is primarily dependent on how secure the parent is about the HIV-positive status. If the parent is not yet comfortable with being HIV-positive, HIV/AIDS education will not be shared positively with the child and may make the child feel uncomfortable with the information.

Most parents believe that children around the age of seven are mature enough to understand the finality of death and they could have heard about HIV/AIDS in the community or at school. At that age children do not understand the stigma attached to the virus because they do not understand the implications of sexual transmission.

Disclosure is necessary because children with information can protect themselves from contracting the virus when caring for an infected parent. Because the carer has such intimate contact with the infected person, it is possible that opportunistic infections or even HIV itself can be passed to the carer if proper precautions are not taken.

Others argue that knowing about HIV in the family just makes the child’s life harder. Eventually, it remains the decision of the individual. From an African context both traditionally and emotionally, HIV-positive parents face great difficulties in disclosing their status to their children. Each individual must decide whether talking about HIV/AIDS will assist their children to deal with the future or contribute to their stigmatization and discrimination. Although there are few resources that help in disclosure, they are generally not easily accessible