"I like AIDS"

At least, that's what this one brat -- err, I mean student of mine always says. Coincidentally, he had to attend a workshop on AIDS today for 5 whole hours. Well, he and his classmates. And another class. And ... oh, that's it.

I had to sit in with them for the first hour because the first hour was my subject with the students today, from 8-9am. The workshop, conducted by a group of volunteers (I can't remember the name of the organisation) started with ice-breaking where the facilitator told the students that she will ask them a series of yes-no questions, each of which they had to respond by moving to different parts of the room (left side: YES, right side: NO, middle: NOT SURE). It started of with simple personal questions ("Everybody likes me", "I share my problems with my parents", "I talk about sex with my friends") and went on to test their knowledge on AIDS ("If a mosquito bites a person with AIDS, it can infect the next person it bites"). When it came to the knowledge testing part, I was quite surprised on how so many of the students got the answers wrong. Yes, even the kid who loves AIDS did get some of the answers wrong. The facilitator went on to show presentation slides with information about AIDS after that litle exercise.

I think I took it for granted everyone knew about AIDS. It's common knowledge for people in my age group, because back then, the government had an all-out AIDS awareness campaign; there were plenty of advertisements in the media both printed and broadcast, plenty of leaflets, etc. We knew how AIDS can and cannot be spread simply by listening to a short ad on the radio. The awareness campaign was everywhere.

I forgot that there hasn't been an awareness campaign for a while, and only now there's a gradual comeback to the campaign.

I left at 9am because that was the end of my lesson so I don't know what transpired next. I'm sure they learnt a lot.

And no, I don't like AIDS. And I don't have AIDS!