Guillermina Navarro, journalist based in Mexico City
A young workshop organizer in a Mexico City refuge run by the NGO Casa Alianza.
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SILENCE= DEATH Slogan of ACT UP, an Aids activist group |
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HIV/Aids Out of a population of 94.2 million, 180,000
people live with HIV/Aids. Among adults in the 15-49 age group, 0.35% are HIV-infected,
along with 1,700 children under the age of 15. The number of people who have died
of Aids since the epidemic began is unknown. Source: UNAIDS, 1998. |
Born in
Mexico City, Latin America’s only Aids prevention programme for street children is
ready to share its expertise with other countries in the region
The street
is their home. For several thousand young Mexicans, it is the place where they play,
eat, sleep and when they can, work. For many, the sex trade is the only way of earning
a few pesos. It is also the most likely way that they will become infected with HIV.
In a few years time, many of them will succumb to Aids.
Finding suitable ways to prevent Aids is no simple task, and even less so when street
children are concerned. “They are anxious, unstable and sometimes aggressive,” says
psychologist Gualberto Gatica. To help tackle the problem, the NGO Casa Alianza,
which has been working in Mexico since 1986, launched its Luna (“Moon”) programme
two years ago. It is the only Aids prevention campaign in Latin America designed
especially for homeless children.
Distorted
knowledge
Luna, a name the infected
children conjured up to evoke light amid darkness, is currently monitoring 6,180
children and teenagers. Besides being present on the preventive front, the programme
also keeps a close check on HIV-positive children, provides medical treatment for
youth with Aids and psychological counselling for their friends.
“Since 1997, the number of infected children has risen, so we’re focusing on prevention,”
explains Nicasio Garcia Lopez, the programme’s coordinator. “Street children usually
know about sex and Aids, but it’s often distorted knowledge. Hence the importance
of effective prevention.”
Volunteers and teachers from Casa Alianza comb the capital’s neighbourhoods every
day to persuade boys and girls to go to the organization’s “shelter” where they can
attend an hour-long workshop twice a week called “HIV/Aids–What is it?”. With the
help of simple, colourful teaching materials, they learn how the disease spreads
and how to protect themselves against it. Many children are also reached directly
on their home ground–the street. When they go around the city, Casa Alianza’s teachers
carry games with them that can be set up anywhere, all based on questions and answers.
A game of darts for example. Depending on where the children land the darts on the
board, they must answer different questions. Another, called Marathon, is based on
an athletics race. The most popular game, Lunoca, is like snakes and ladders and
provides information about HIV, the immune system and ways to prevent Aids. Such
teaching material is easy to use and entirely based on linking ideas and pictures.
A 1996 joint survey by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and Mexico City
officials found that 13,373 young people under 18 lived and/or worked in the streets
of the capital. Their number grew by 20 per cent between 1992 and 1995–more than
6 per cent a year.
Casa Alianza is also present in the United States, Canada, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa
Rica and Nicaragua and is setting up a Luna network in Latin America, based on the
methods, equipment and learning games used in Mexico. “The idea is to copy the material
and come up with a manual which can be used all over Latin America to assess the
results,” says the programme coordinator.
The Mexican headquarters of Casa Alianza also plans to devise new materials and games,
such as colouring books, picture slides and puzzles which contain information about
HIV. The organization also responds to frequent requests to give talks to schools,
parishes and Mexican institutions which care for disadvantaged children. This is
perhaps the best evidence that the Luna programme is shining brightly.
• http://www.casa-alianza.org
