Imprisoned Educators

It’s very unfortunate, but many people think of or are reminded of HIV/Aids whenever they think of any African countries. Uganda is not the highest in numbers, but is also not the lowest. According to a lecture we had (and statistics found at World Health Organization 2013), Uganda is the 10^th highest in the world. One of the first experiences with prevention we had was actually in Ethiopia. We were waiting for our flight and there was a condom commercial. It had different flavors advertised, electronically tested, and showed flirting males and females to help promote safe sex. Its been shown that abstinence should not be the only thing taught, so safe sex is the next thing to promote.  Educating all people about the HIV/Aids epidemic needs to also be something that’s promoted/shared.
I was given the opportunity to go with my internship (LAPEWA) and a sister organization (PACE) to visit the peer educations that they have in the prison. These peer educators get paid a small stipend to be trained and then teach others about the HIV/Aids, prevention, safe male circumcision, and soon trained in more detail about sexual gender based violence (SGBV). These men are a great support to each other and to other inmates. They have an incentive, but they also take seriously their job to teach others. The more educated people are, the better this epidemic can be controlled and hopefully eradicated.
During the war, this virus was spread at a very rapid rate. Soldiers who were infected raped and helped themselves to women. And whether they knew they were infected or not, the more partners you have, the higher your chances of getting and/or passing the virus. So, whether the spread was intentional or not, there were a lot of rapes and promiscuity during the war and the number of infected people increased drastically.
There are medications for people to take to keep it suppressed but everyone needs to be tested so they are aware of their status. And of course that’s where education comes in. Learn about the virus, learn how it’s passed, learn how to protect yourself and others against it, and educate others about it. That’s what these men in prison are doing. And they deserve Kudos. There are almost 1,000 inmates, so they have a lot of work ahead of them. I hope that they are influential. I hope that they can be the first small step in the process of eliminating HIV/Aids. I really hope that this epidemic can be eliminated or cured during my lifetime.