Discrimination by health in villages and Schools

Saturday.

For many of you it’s a day for resting, relaxing maybe not but at least the daily activities differ from the routinely weekdays. Here, week-ends are also very different from weekdays : but they usually mean MUCH more work, as we have the children on-site ALL day ! Of course, this means organizing games, activities, and so on… On top of that, it’s been raining all day : 40 kids playing inside a concrete-wall building make a heck of a lot of noise.

The morning was interesting : we went with the Home Hak teenagers to visit a village not far off, spending a good part of the day entertaining the village in the name of the Home Hak center. Small village, about 20 houses, and it starts with running around to call the children to the leader’s house, where the games take place during over an hour. Then we cook sweets, and the actual lunch which we all eat together, before going to visit the elderly and sick who could not come. The whole operation is to spread a message of love and recognition in this village many neighbors think cursed. A generation ago, 30 years, leprosy raked the village killing many and sending many fleeing. Now there is no sign of the illness, but bad habits and beliefs are hard to change in these animist and nature-fearing parts. One of the goals of the center is to fight against these mindsets frozen shut by tradition, to thaw them into loving and consideration. Its actually the same fight that is being led also specifically for the HIV and AIDS stricken children and people.

I also wanted to mention today two little girls, Pui and Ea, both thirteen. They arrived last year at the center, stayed home a few months and finally restarted school two months ago with the beginning of the school year. They are both HIV positive, but the school doesn’t know it yet. And the school is having doubts about the health of other children as well, and decided last Friday to have blood analysis run on all the students… without parental consultation ! Peo, one of the thai staff, of course went to pick up the girls first thing, and then could start talking to the teachers a bit to see what was going on. And it doesn’t seem positive : undercover of a health-assessment operation, the school probably wants to check who has HIV, possibly in order to throw them out. This is a daily experience here, people being so afraid of Aids that they refuse to even come near to these children. For example, at the pre-school last year, which the center finally succeeded in convincing to take in the few 3 and 4 year-olds of the center (only one is HIV+) the enrollement fell from 80 children to 15… luckily it is a catholic institution and they preferred to stick with there ideals than throw out the kids. This year about 25 kids attend. For Pui and Ea, big schools of over 500 students are not ready for such a gamble, and Peo says that even if the director and teachers agreed in principle (a very wishful “if” at the moment), it would take several years to reach any kind of progress on the acceptance of HIV kids in class… So all understand and respect the girls’ wishes to not mention anything, and their liberty in deciding this is key. I hope and pray this will go in the right direction !

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