Hey everyone,After this week's question of the week, I thought I should do a little research on HIV/AIDS and children, and how it affects them. So I found out that thousands of kids aroung the world get HIV every year, and they end up dying of AIDS! (AVERT, 2009). According to the same source, a study showed that in 2007, 2 million kids were infected around the world! And that every year, 370,000 kids are newly infected! This is unbelievable. How can those children be left to die? Every time I look at those statistics, I feel so angry and scared that we don't have a cure for this killer yet. What if the scenario in the QOTW did really apply to my child? How will I deal with that? Will I ever be able to make my child feel normal like all the other kids??!! Please watch the video I posted to get the feeling.
Did you know that?
An HIV stigma study in Zambia showed that children with HIV/AIDS are discriminated against by their families, communities, and society. HIV stigma against children takes many forms; "
Children may be blamed for their parents’ death, children may be excluded from school, from families and from communities because of fear of infection if there is HIV in their family; Orphans are often treated differently from other children in families and accused of carrying on their parents bad behavior"!!!! (AED)
Reference:
AVERT (2009). HIV and AIDS descrimination and stigma. Retrieved October28, 2009, from http://www.avert.org/aidsstigma.htm
AED (NA). Understanding and Challenging HIV Stigma. Retrieved October 28, 2009, from http://www.changeproject.org/technical/hivaids/stigma.html
