MOZAMBIQUE: When information comes knocking – Remote areas should get HIV/Aids information

Photo: Lilian Liang/PlusNews

Messages about HIV incorporate alternatives to risky cultural practices

MAGAGADE,  – Not much information about HIV and AIDS has reached people in the remote village of Magagade, in the Caia district of central Mozambique’s Sofala Province. There is no electricity or piped water and the roads are so bad that Manuel Colaço, 22, had to travel there by bicycle to teach residents about how the disease is transmitted and treated.

He is one of 30 activists from the National Association for Civil Humanitarian Development (known by the Portuguese acronym ANADHU) who use pedal-power to reach remote areas, where they give families door-to-door talks about HIV and AIDS and distribute condoms.

“We try to speak in local languages so that messages are well understood by the families, and we try to create a comfortable environment for the family to talk openly,” said Colaço. The initiative is part of a project that has been running since December 2008, funded by the United States Embassy in Mozambique.

The activists often use bananas to demonstrate using a condom, and pictures to illustrate modes of HIV transmission, so that people with a relatively low education level will understand the information more easily.

“Ignorance associated with illiteracy has unfortunately frustrated many actions aimed at combating HIV/AIDS in the countryside,” said António Xavier Windo, the ANADHU supervisor in Caia. “This is why we give priority to dialogue and carry out the campaign as if it were a Bible study session.”

HIV prevalence in the districts of Caia, Marromeu and Gorongosa is high – about 21 percent of Caia’s 118,000 inhabitants are HIV-infected compared to a national average of 16 percent – and a 2005 study by the Ministry of Health found that teenagers were at greater risk of infection due to lack of knowledge about prevention methods, peer pressure and high-risk behaviours.

We give priority to dialogue and carry out the campaign as if it were a Bible study session

In Magagade village Mário Tchica, 14, said he learned a lot from Colaço’s talk about how HIV is transmitted and prevented, but found it difficult to ask certain questions in the presence of his parents. “It was easier to ask about men’s issues, because if I asked about female issues, my parents would think that I was more interested in studying women,” he told IRIN/PlusNews.

A traditional ritual called ‘kupitakufa’, which obliges widows to have sex with the brother of their deceased husband – or even with someone “rented” for the purpose – in order to purify themselves, is thought to cause a large number of HIV infections in Mozambique.

The activists suggest safer alternatives: for example, in a new version of the ritual, called ‘kupitakufa-tchinda’, the widow gives some roots prepared by a traditional healer to a couple from her deceased husband’s family. The couple must have sex in close proximity to the roots, which the widow then rubs on her body, purifying her for a new marriage without having to engage in unprotected sex.

“This solution for purification is being widely publicised … and various people are already implementing it, but it’s still too early to tell if this has reduced infection rates,” said Windo.

ANADHU’s activists have reached 113 families in the villages of Caia; Colaço believes the grip of taboo has been loosened and there is more openness about HIV and AIDS.

“Sometimes we get the door slammed in our face, but fortunately more than 75 percent of the families we’ve approached have gathered and spoken openly about the disease,” he said. “I believe that little by little, there will be more openness.”

ac/am/ll/ks/he source.www.irinnews.org

GLOBAL: Disaster risk increasing, exacerbated by climate change – report: vulnerability of rural livelihoods

Photo: Evans Mensah/IRIN

The risk of disasters is increasing due to the expansion of slums, climate change and deteriorating ecosystems (file photo)

MANAMA,  – The risk of disasters occurring worldwide is increasing due to the expansion of slums, the increasing vulnerability of rural livelihoods to weather changes and deteriorating ecosystems, a new UN report says.

“Exacerbating this deadly trio is the established and omnipresent threat of climate change, impelled by greenhouse gas emissions generated by affluent societies and individuals, with the resulting burdens falling on developing countries and their poorest citizens,” said the first UN Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction, which was launched in Bahrain on 17 May.

This report is a collaborative effort undertaken by UN agencies and partners, member states, the World Bank, regional inter-governmental and technical institutions, civil society networks, academic institutions and other UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR) system partners.

“The most important finding of the report is that even without climate change, disaster risk is still increasing worldwide… If climate change added to these disaster risk patterns, it will be a quite catastrophic picture,” Andrew Maskrey, one of the report’s authors, told IRIN.

“Risk Drivers”

The report outlined the three main “risk drivers” of disasters. It said that inhabitants of informal settlements were increasingly at risk from weather-related hazards.

“Urbanisation per se tends to increase the intensity of run-off during storms leading to heavy flooding, often due to an underinvestment in building and maintaining drains. In fact, many floods are caused as much by deficient or non-existent drainage, as by the intensity of rainfall itself,” the report said.

“There are approximately one billion people living in informal squatter settlements and many are at risk from disasters. These numbers are growing by about 25 million a year worldwide,” Maskrey said.

Going beyond cities, people living in rural areas who depend on agriculture and other natural resources are vulnerable to even slight variations in weather, let alone major changes in climate and more resilient disease vectors, the report said. Maskrey added that such challenges were pushing many rural folk into poverty and deprivation.

He also said that man’s continued mistreatment of the world’s ecosystems would inevitably cause more disasters. “Wherever we are clearing mangroves on the coasts, draining wetlands or deforesting hillsides, we are really creating conditions for disaster risk.”

What can be done?

The report proposes a 20-point action plan to reduce risk, focusing on: stepping up efforts to respond to climate change; strengthening the economic resilience of small and vulnerable economies; supporting community initiatives; enhancing national and local governance; encouraging the adoption of high-level development policy frameworks; and, above all, investing in sustainable disaster risk reduction measures.

In his opening remarks before the launch of the report, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said the report “urges a major shift in development thinking by emphasising resilience and pre-emptive measures”.

“If the risk is actually caused by these [three] drivers; if somehow we can address these things, we are going to reduce disaster risk, stop poor people from getting poorer, [and] deal with the magnifying effects of climate change,” Maskrey said.

The report gives policy recommendations to the UN and governments on how to tackle these three issues. “The report tells us that even poor countries can do this. It is not just a question of money. The technical measures exist and there are experiences that show that it can be done, so it is really a question of political will,” Maskrey said.

dvh/ar/ed source.www.irinnews.org