Can you get AIDS from kissing? Does birth control keep you from getting HIV? How is HIV transmitted? Eighth-grade students at Francis C. Hammond Middle School in Alexandria yesterday posed these telling questions to adult leaders during an HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention program as part of World AIDS Day.
Some adults with their heads in the sand still may think that eighth-graders, just barely teenagers, may be too young to ask sex-related questions, let alone listen to adults’ answers. Bare in mind, however, that more 13-year-olds than we care to notice are mothers and fathers. Just as startling, the 13-24 age group is the second most likely to contract HIV.
“When you look at the rate of infection and how HIV mainly affects black males and females, it’s important that those conversations are being had [with younger people],” said Todd Brown, the youth program manager of the Northern Virginia AIDS Ministry (NOVAM) in Falls Church.
Mr. Brown was one of several speakers at Hammond for 250 eighth-graders at the “Keep the Promise: Stop AIDS” program conducted in conjunction with the Alexandria Health Department and NOVAM. The program was held as part of the school system’s approved curriculum for the eighth-grade physical education and health classes, which focus on sexually transmitted diseases throughout the year, Assistant Principal Kimberly Graves said.
“I believe we’re living in a very critical time … and a number of young people are making unhealthy choices. … We need to let them know that [HIV/AIDS] is real and it can hurt them,” she said. “They’re uninformed about what actions can lead to certain consequences.”
Ms. Graves said that besides giving students “options for healthy alternatives,” it is helpful to expose students to resources outside the school building.
Still, she pointed out that each speaker started his or her presentation by stressing that abstinence was the only way to avoid at-risk behaviors and keep from contracting sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV.
One speaker used a baseball analogy, telling the students that they need to think of home plate as abstinence and that every time they venture away from home plate, no matter how many steps they take, they’re off base, at risk and susceptible to getting caught. The students also played “HIV/AIDS Jeopardy.”
“The message permeated that students need to abstain,” she said. The students’ questions then set the stage for discussions. Mr. Brown added that although their aim was to provide information, they were careful not be accusatory with students. “We’re just giving facts on a virus that is trying to destroy the quality of living on individuals. To me, it’s like teaching math so when [students] are grown and have jobs, they can budget and they won’t get into debt,” he said.
His organization also teaches student “ambassadors” basic information about HIV transmission and testing so they can teach other students about the disease and dispel popular myths.
Once they are given the correct information, he said, “you see a light come on and they say, ’Oh, wow, I need to rethink my behavior’ or ’I need to rethink even what I think about sex.’” Mr. Brown, a youth minister at Macedonia Baptist Church in Arlington, also pushes personal responsibility.
“Though HIV can’t be cured, it’s 100 percent preventable if individuals are properly educated,” he said. “Once we give them the education they need, you see a difference in the way they live their lives.”
Mr. Brown said it is also important, especially for young people, to have real role models to make a real connection to the problem.
“We have to put a voice to this virus; if not, you’ll see the infection rate escalate rather than decrease,” Mr. Brown said.
The voice at Hammond yesterday was that of Alexandria native and T.C. Williams High School graduate Larry Bryant. The national field organizer for Housing Works, an HIV-issues advocacy group, Mr. Bryant surprised and mesmerized the students, Mr. Brown and Ms. Graves said.
When the students were asked whether they could tell the difference between an HIV-positive person and someone who does not have HIV, they answered yes. Then Mr. Bryant informed them that he has been HIV positive for 20 years.
“You could hear a pin drop,” said Nechelle Terrell, HIV-AIDS administrative technician for the Alexandria Health Department.
Mr. Bryant — who told the students that he is not a homosexual, was not promiscuous and never had been an intravenous-drug user — said he discovered his HIV status while he was a college student in Norfolk. A doctor pulled him aside and told him he no longer would be able to get paid for donating blood.
“Two things adults worry about talking to children about are sexuality and death, and HIV/AIDS ties all that together,” Mr. Bryant said. “But this doesn’t mean that kids aren’t having these conversations themselves.”
Simply teaching abstinence, said the former preschool teacher, is “like putting 3- and 4-year-olds in a room with a plate of cookies and telling them not to eat them; then closing the door and hoping they won’t touch them.
“If you don’t give [youngsters] answers, they’ll find them,” Mr. Bryant said. “It’s easy to have these discussions on World AIDS Day, but what about the day after, March 21 or July 18? No matter what day it is, this is about helping to save ourselves.”
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