Introducing AIDS as a classroom issue
A primary reason for bringing the issue of global HIV/AIDS into the Irish classroom centres on the fact that AIDS is not just a public health problem, it is a development crisis. Within impoverished countries struggling to make social and economic progress, the AIDS epidemic has killed millions of adults in the prime of their working and parenting lives, decimated the workforce, fractured and impoverished families, orphaned millions, and shredded the fabric of communities.
Development education
A critical tool for understanding
HIV/AIDS is clearly a development issue with both local and global relevance. Development Education, in examining issues of poverty and injustice, aims to raise awareness of developing countries and of the interrelationships that exist between them and ourselves. It focuses on fostering an understanding of interculturalism, of the lives of other people, of the similarities and differences between cultures. It looks at issues of responsibility, interdependence and mutual understanding.
Through Development Education people recognise their decisions can have an impact on others, thereby stressing the importance for individuals to be sufficiently well informed to make responsible choices. Clearly exploring the global problem of HIV/AIDS presents opportunities in this respect.
The classroom
Opportunities for introducing the topic of HIV/AIDS
Raising awareness in the classroom among young people of issues related to HIV/AIDS in our own society has become a priority in recent years, with much of the focus being on friendships, feelings and emotions, managing relationships and making responsible decisions.
In second-level school, within the Junior Cycle this falls mainly within the range of the Social, Personal and Health Education Programme (SPHE). The extent to which this deals with awareness about sexually- transmitted disease depends to a large extent on school policy on relationships and sexuality education.
At Senior Cycle the Contemporary Issues Module within the Leaving Cert Applied programme is the main area in which it can form a component. The Transition Year also affords opportunities to deal in depth with these issues. In general it is more a question of approach rather than one of adding more material to an already overloaded curriculum.
Teaching resources
While there is some interesting material available for dealing with HIV/AIDS with youth groups, notably that developed by the Health Education Bureau, very little material specifically designed for schools has been produced within this country, and none with a focus on the developing world. There is clearly a need for the development of resources that deal with the issue of HIV/AIDS.
However, there are some very interesting manuals and activity kits available that provide creative approaches to dealing with issues of poverty and injustice. The resources provide opportunities for young people to look in creative ways at issues related to poverty and interdependence, while also dealing with school-related topics such as trade, agriculture, economics, history and geography. HIV/AIDS impacts on all of these issues in a very real way.
The methodologies and approaches in these resources can be usefully adapted to include the HIV/AIDS dimension. For example in presenting poverty as a combination of lack of human factors (health, skills, education and knowledge) as well as physical factors (housing, land, food and water) teachers can explore how HIV/AIDS impacts on and exacerbates situations of poverty. Students can be asked to identify how issues of risk, vulnerability, insecurity, social exclusion, loss of dignity, deprivation, lack of choice, and powerlessness are compounded by the problem of HIV/AIDS.
The resources introduce gender issues, and the importance of improving the situation of women and girls. Once again this issue can be highlighted in the classroom as a critical issue in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
These resources can be accessed via the National Committee for Development Education (NCDE), and through organisations working in development in Ireland.