South African and U.S. Students Launch AIDS Prevention Project

Schoolchildren from Los Angeles and Cape Town are participating in a collaborative learning project on the impact of HIV/AIDS in their respective communities.

Students from Artesia High School in the ABC School District in Los Angeles County and Manenberg High School in Cape Town will use the Internet and web-based technologies to discuss HIV/AIDS prevention strategies. The project is backed by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), which has been conducting AIDS prevention efforts in South Africa for more than a decade.

At the project's official launch in Cape Town, AFT President Randi Weingarten noted that schools are "part of the life of the communities they serve." "Our ability to come together across oceans and continents for this important effort illustrates once again a key fact about our schools: Education is so much more than math, science and reading," she said.

"In this project, our focus is on preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS," Weingarten said. "But the skills that it teaches -- the ability to access information, to gain knowledge and, through critical thinking, to use that information to solve problems -- will serve our students throughout their lives ...."

Among those attending the launch were Manenberg Principal Thurston Brown; Artesia Principal Sergio Garcia; Laura Rico, past president of the ABC Federation of Teachers in Southern California; and Thobile Ntola, president of the South African Democratic Teachers' Union.

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