This past week’s trip to PEPFAR and learning about how HIV/AIDS affects not only this small portion of our country gave me very fluctuating feelings throughout the day. The shift was basically between distraught and impressed. Impressed because the two women we met were using personal initiative to fight for a cause that has been deemed incurable, and distraught because of the shocking statistics, and my own initial ignorance towards the matter. Although countless people (especially college aged students) have heard the safe-sex, or even abstinence only speech, I was distraught by how little I had originally known about countless options that are available and the many efforts that are being made to prevent and treat HIV/AIDS. It was not frustrating because of my own personal lack of information per se, but more because the whole point of the first presentation was to inform and educate. I do not consider myself to be naive or ignorant about the subject, but it really put the situation into perspective. Since many HIV/AIDS victims could have prevented the disease by just being informed or educated, and I, a college student who has heard this speech multiple times didn’t know about programs such as needle exchange, maybe society’s attitude towards sex and drugs is getting in the way of saving lives. Instead of worrying about taboo situations, we should address the problems for what they really are and work towards solving the problem instead of letting someone else deal with it as we judge the victims.
I’ve seen this situation firsthand by going to high school in Knoxville, TN where, handing out condoms in the hallways at school would be attacked by churches and parents alike when in fact it is places like this here the education is lacking the most, and the condoms could have potentially save a life. On a more positive note, I was truly excited to hear a college students talk so informatively about the disease in our own community and I was glad to hear about the PEPFAR speaker’s experience with AIDS vistims and how it affected her so much that she know works for this specific organization. I certainly believe that education is key to preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS. While there is no real “cure,” it is organizations and people like this who have been inspired to do something now, rather than later, and to think globally, yet act locally.
I completely agree with everything you said. I just wanted to reiterate how ridiculous it is that we are still having the abstinence versus safe sex education debate. The main reason for this is the fact that we are primarily a Christian nation, that disapproves of any form of birth control. I hope that sometime in the very near future we will learn that safe sex education throughout the country will be an all around benefit.
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