National 4 (Spotlight Weekly)

“The Situation Is Becoming Alarming”

— Usha Jha

USHA JHA, chief executive officer of Samjhauta Nepal, has had a long experience in working in the areas of HIV/AIDS in Bara district. Jha's organization has launched a successful project generating awareness in Bara district. She spoke to SPOTLIGHT on experiences of the project. Excerpts:

Your organization has launched projects in some districts to find effective ways in combating HIV/AIDS. How do you find the situation of HIV/AIDS vis-à-vis adolescent population?

Actually, our program initially was not targeted at youths. Our primary target was to educate women in Bara district. Since our program targeted women, we also got the opportunity to study the problems of youths and adolescents. Our study revealed that the adolescents are in most vulnerable situation since they have very little knowledge about HIV/AIDS, STI and STD. The project evaluation also noted the changing sexual behavior among adolescents as majority of young girls and boys were having sexual relations before marriage. If the situation in the Bara district is alarming, the trend might be similar in other districts as well. This shows that the situation is becoming alarming.

How do you find the problems of adolescents?

Our values and family system does not permit youths and adolescents to talk about physical changes they undergo during that age. So, the children cannot talk anything about these issues with parents. Whether it is in urban or rural area, the young people are confused and they cannot seek information on these things and are unable to decide what they need to do.

Why are the youths and adolescents vulnerable?

Since they don't have employment opportunities, many young boys land in the group of drug abusers and girls are more vulnerable to getting trapped by the flesh-traders and traffickers. In both situation, there are more possibilities of infection of HIV, STI and STD. There is high percentage of infections among the IDU users.

What do you suggest to prevent the infection of HIV?

First of all, we need to increase the level of understanding about the disease including ways to prevent the infections. Our studies have shown that increasing the level of understanding about the disease among women will reduce the possibility of infections. Since our program was basically designed to see how effective the literacy and economic approach is in combating HIV/AIDS, we focused our program to increase the awareness level. We distributed reading materials focusing women but it also benefited the youths and adolescents. Funded by the World Bank - Development Marketplace, through this project we have learnt the lesson that enhancing the knowledge of parents helps to increase the level of awareness among youths and adolescents.

How do you assess the situation among rural and urban youths?

Our experience in Bara district is that the urban youths have more means to understand the problems of HIV but the rural youths don't have such opportunities. In terms of vulnerability, adolescents livings in both areas are at risk.

What do you suggest to prevent the growth of this alarming trend?

We have to launch vigorous programs targeting women. There is also a dire need to increase programs targeting youths. If we can generate appropriate level of awareness about the HIV and possible ways of its infection among these two sections of people, it will help to prevent the present rate of growth.

How do you see the level of awareness regarding contraceptives?

Our studies have shown that there is a clear need to increase the availability of condoms in rural areas. The youths should be given easy access to these methods. Interestingly, many rural youths do not have any access to such methods. In backward communities, there is virtually no awareness regarding the HIV/AIDS, STD and STI.