At St. Dominic's High School in west Belfast, 15 students recently took an eight-week Red Cross HIV/AIDS course, learning about HIV's local and global impact and how to be a peer educator. The female Year 13 students then put their coursework to use in 35-minute sessions with Year 9 pupils at the school.
"The school runs a module for Year 13 students to help prepare them for the world of work and also to be more active citizens in their community," said Claire Conlon, a St. Dominic teacher. "It can be beneficial to bring in outside agencies with expertise to work with the students, and in this case we have been working with the Red Cross to learn about the important issue of HIV. Passing on their knowledge to others has been excellent for the girls' personal development, and they also seemed to have had a lot of fun working with and for the Red Cross."
The number of people in Northern Ireland living with HIV has been increasing for the last decade, and disease-related stigma and discrimination still exist.
Advertisement"To even attempt to tackle the stigma attached to HIV and AIDS, one of the first things we have to do is to talk about it," said Andy McCoy, the Red Cross youth and schools manager. "Some of the issues we have discussed with the St. Dominic's pupils are how HIV is spread and dispelling the myths that exist about the illness. Crucially, we have been examining how treatment is not universally available to those living with HIV and AIDS in the developing world, and how AIDS can decimate communities."
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