HIV/AIDS Workshop

It's been almost a month since the HIV/Awareness Workshop that I helped facilitate, and I can't believe I haven't blogged it yet. On June 28th, I did two sessions of a 2 day workshop. My first session was about STI's. I showed a graphic video that explained common STI's in Guyana and their signs and symptoms. After the video, I split the kids up in groups so that they could come up with reasons why it's important to know about STI's and to make connections between STI's and HIV. It was a little bit of struggle to get them to participate.

Then while we waited for the next presenter, we played a game called fruit basket. It's similar to musical chairs in that a person gets out of the game because there is one less chair than people. They really enjoyed that; there was a lot of scrambling around and laughter.

The next session I did involeved describing different kinds of scenarios, talking about what behaviors would likely happen, and then discussing safe behaviors in that particular situation. For example: Two people are in a secluded spot on the seawall. They are hugging and kissing. He pulls out a condom.

One scenario that I remember distinctly is: Two people having been going out for a while. The girl says, "You've been stopping by me for a year now. Why haven't you tried to have sex with me? You like boys or something?" We had a really interesting conversation about this situation. From it, I learned how much pressure there is on males to have sex even if they might not want to or even if they're not ready for it. And, they're made to feel that something is inately wrong with them if they don't have sex by a certain age.

For my first workshop, I felt that I did an okay job. Later though, I found out that the kids really enjoyed my sessions, and they wondered why I only did the one day instead of both days :)