PARENTS must work to break down the taboo that talking to children about sex brings, or else all the work being done with youths to educate about HIV/AIDS could be for nought.

This, according to Desiree Edghill, executive director of Artistes in Direct Support (AIDS).

AIDS is an HIV/AIDS non-governmental organisation (NGO) whose members are originally stage performers and artists. Formed in 1992, AIDS uses its combined talents in stage production to bring attention to HIV and related issues.

“I think we have to get more parents involved. You educate children about HIV/AIDS and other issues and then when they get home, talking about sex is taboo. Parents are still not comfortable if a child comes and speaks of sex. We have to get parents on board,” Edghill said.

“We have to help parents… teach them… how to do parenting where sex is concerned. They should understand that if they are comfortable talking (about) sex with their children, when the children have a problem with sex, they will not be afraid to tell them,” she added.

“That is our major issue right now… We have to move from the youths and help the parents talk about sex. It is going to be challenging for us… We have a lot of single parents and they have to work, so it is difficult to get them to come out,” Edghill said further.

In describing the impact of the NGO’s efforts to get people talking more about HIV in Guyana, Edghill spoke about the ‘Ready Body – Is It Really Ready’ campaign launched in 1999.

Ready Body targets youth and youth groups, ‘limers’ on the streets, minibus drivers and conductors who, she said, were having relationships with their young passengers on the bus. Edghill explained the rationale behind the campaign.

“From the research done, the age group of people living with HIV at that time was between 14 and 49. At that time, young people did not want to hear anything about being tested for HIV and AIDS, so we thought we (would) attract them by saying ‘ready body’, because you know we have a term in Guyana where we say ‘your body ready’ (meaning) it looking good,” she said.

Edghill added that the Ready Body project was the first HIV/AIDS project — funded by the United States Agency for International Development — started in Guyana and involving siix NGOs.

She noted that the programme was able to encourage young people to open up to the issues of HIV and AIDS. But it was not easy. The project had to do a lot of work to train peer educators.

“At that time, you couldn’t get youths to do a play or production and say that ‘I am HIV positive’ because there was so much stigma attached,” she said.

But since then, Edghill said she has noticed that more youths are willing to perform parts in HIV theatrical productions, which her NGO produces yearly.

She expressed pride at her NGO’s role in the progress made to achieve openness in HIV communication among Guyanese youth.

“I remember one year we were targeting youth in the play A Course for Change. (We asked) for young people who wanted to be involved in the HIV production to come in for auditions. It was overwhelming. We had over 100 young people who wanted to be a part of the production at the National Cultural Centre dealing with HIV in Guyana and that was a plus for me. That was in 2005,” Edghill said.

“Young people over the years have become more and more involved in the fight against HIV/AIDS. We have a lot of young people from youth groups being trained as HIV/AIDS educators. We are doing in-school youth programmes talking about abstinence, health, self-esteem and working on the Health and Family Life Education (HLFE) programmes in schools. They know the basic HIV education, but there are a lot of other things that they need to know,” she added.

The HLFE programme also draws on the skills and experiences from other Caribbean territories. A trainer had recently come from Barbados to train teachers and NGO representatives in the programme.

According to the Ministry of Health, the HFLE programme is complemented by the National Youth Health Organisation (NYHO) — a network of health clubs within secondary schools. The NYHO was developed by the Adolescent and Young Adult Health and Wellness Unit in the ministry, through a partnership with other ministries and stakeholders.

There are now over 70 health clubs in the network. Some of the goals of the network are to develop the advocacy for adolescent well-being, including reproductive health, develop life skills, and empower students to be the agents of change. The networks activities include adolescent peer education and other abstinence-focused programmes targeting 13 to 14 year olds. The ministry reports that 47 schools across Guyana are involved in the programme.

Today, the ministries of health and education and the NGOs are trying to see how the current HFLE programme can be formalised within the current education curriculum.

But the last hurdle in the fight to keep the youth informed and empowered on reproductive health issues is still the lack of parental involvement. The Ministry of Health has found that efforts to engage parents in school-based programmes to encourage abstinence among youth have proven challenging, since parental participation in sensitisation sessions specifically for them is low. This is more marked where there are no vibrant parent-teacher associations.