Just like students, I get to have the summer off, as the vast majority of my HIV education work takes place in schools. Between January and July this year I have given 55 Positive Voice talks at 46 schools across the UK. All being well, the next academic year looks just as busy, with 35 talks already booked in my diary for the autumn term.
I am always encouraged when I see my diary getting filled as it shows me that schools still see HIV/AIDS education as something that their students should hear about. With so much to fit into a curriculum, particularly under the auspices of PSHE (Personal, Social, and Health Education), it could easily be overlooked. Yet HIV/AIDS is much more than just a health issue – it can and does have an impact on many more areas of life, such as personal relationships, employment, the law, economics and politics.
It never ceases to amaze me that there is still such a lot of ignorance and lack of basic knowledge about HIV and AIDS. Part of my talk always includes a question-and-answer element where pupils can ask me anything about either my own personal situation or about HIV/AIDS generally. It’s the part of my talk I enjoy the most, as I get a sense of what young people do and don’t know about HIV and what issues are on their minds.
Simple things that I take for granted, like knowing the difference between HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) and AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome), are just not understood by the majority of people. I always make sure I explain the difference – HIV is the virus someone becomes infected with, which then destroys certain cells in the body’s immune system, and AIDS is a medical label given to a variety of different illnesses that someone who is HIV-positive can become vulnerable to when their immune system has been sufficiently damaged by HIV.
Some may think it’s not important to know the difference and will use the two terms interchangeably, but as someone living with HIV I think it is important to differentiate between the two.
The scope for questions is endless, as nothing is off limits as far as I am concerned. Sometimes questions can be very blunt, for example, “When did you last have sex and was it good?”! Others are slightly more thought-provoking: “If you were being raped, would you tell the man you were HIV-positive?” And occasionally I get the weird and wacky ones, such as “If you were a Siamese twin and had sex tonight and got infected with HIV, would you give it to your twin?” That was an actual question from a 14-year-old!
The key to any question is to answer honestly and provide the students with all the relevant information to make their own informed choices and opinions.
Once I am back in schools in September I hope to include questions I receive during my talks in my blogs, as well as my answers, so that readers will get a chance to experience the Positive Voice in action!
In the meantime I’m off to enjoy a British summer – now where’s my umbrella?