RED RIBBON CARAVAN – (1-4) December

RED RIBBON CARAVAN – (1-4) December
YUWA organised a three day valley based event to mark World AIDS Day, 2011 from December 1st till December 4. The caravan started its journey from YUWA and a grand opening of the event was held at Basantapur Durbar Square. The caravan was decorated with several thematic issues on HIV and AIDS with posters and pamphlets attached to the caravan. Caravan consisted several awareness related posters, one of the posters included, “I have AIDS, Please Hug Me, and I can’t Make you sick”, the posters were painted by young people and there were condoms in packets and there were inflated condoms which had attracted the people in the valley for three days. The caravan when stopped at Basantapur, it made the environment musical and the crowd enjoyed the song on HIV and AIDS and several other Nepali songs. With the traditional music like Sarangi, Flute and Madal, YUWA tried to spread the awareness on what is HIV, How does it transmit and what can we do when one gets HIV infected. Suman poudel, the singer and the lyricist sung like this “ Listen everyone, all the brothers and sisters, How many of you know about HIV and AIDS……It does not transmit by sitting, eating and hugging……………” When the music was going on, Medha Sharma, the Coordinator of the event mentioned about the World AIDS Day and why YUWA team was there. She mentioned “The slogan of this year is “Getting to Zero” which means zero new infection and zero discrimination and we can’t make this happen without the strong involvement of young people.” While the crowd were flowing with the music, info cabin and signature campaign was going on. Inside the info cabin, there were several information and data related on HIV and AIDS. Goma Thapa, the info cabin coordinator was busy with the crowd to inform on their queries and give them HIV related information. Urshula Singh who was in the signature campaign mentioned, “ We are letting people show their commitment for the control of HIV and AIDS, whoever wants to show their commitment can come here and make a red ribbon in this cloth. We need to get ready for the zero new HIV infection and zero discrimination.” The cloth seemed to be filled up with the commitments. The caravan then stopped at Padmodaya school where the students could get the information on HIV and AIDS in an entertaining way. Along with music, info cabin and signature campaign, puppet show made the environment more informative and entertaining. Urshula Singh, Medha Sharma in the narration of the show, Dipendra K.C as Prakash, Richa Bhattarai as Shyam and Dwarika Thebe as Suntali had performed the puppet show. Shyam, an HIV infected student was suspended from the school when his teacher, Prakash knew he was HIV infected. When the son goes on crying to his home and tells his mother Suntali about the suspension and insists her on telling the story, she tells his son entire story of HIV infection. When her husband happens to be in an accident, he takes unprotected blood which was HIV infected. While he was HIV infected, the HIV was transmitted to his wife and then to son when she was pregnant. On the question of PRakash, if the HIV was infected to his sister as well, Suntali mentions she was not infected as she went with the treatment of ART and PMTCT. She even convinces his son that HIV cannot transmit if he plays with his frens, sits together and reads together and makes her son sure that she will talk with the teacher. Teacher at first did not respond well. However, when he went to the city and got information, he spreads awareness among his students and again calls Shyam to school. The name of the show is “I also want to go to School”. Dipendra, the quiz master made the environment funnier and entertaining. The children enjoyed the questions and made themselves clear in several issues. The prizes attracted them. One of the questions were “IS HIV and AIDS same?” The students when confused took expert advice from Medha Sharma and she answered “It’s not the same. HIV is the initial stage and if we do not take proper care and do not take medicine, then only we reach on the stage called AIDS where we get infected with several diseases because of the lack of immunity power.” The teachers in the school were also excited and gave overwhelming response. The first day was concluded at Vishwo Niketan and the journey of second day started with Vidhyarthi Niketan, then at Sharada Higher Secondary School and finally at SOS Hermann Minor School. The journey of third and final day on December 4 started from Jupiter School of Lalitpur, then to Bhrikuti Higher Secondary School and finally was concluded at Patan Durbar Square. The environment of Patan Durbar Square was musical with the Sarangi, Flute, Madal and Guitar and was entertaining and informative with the facilitation of quiz master, Dipendra K.C. The teachers of Vishwo Niketan gave their feedback as “This program became very fruitful for our students at Vishwo Niketan and seem to be an effective program for the young people. We encourage this sort of program in the future and all the best for YUWA Team”. In this way, while everyone in caravan was tired but still the enthusiasm was there. Rukh Gurung, the President thanked everyone and said “YUWA will keep rocking in the days to come”