ms.dk AIDS and African Fatalism
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http://www.actionaiddenmark.org/sw11196.asp?usepf=true
AIDS and African Fatalism Since we all die in the end does it really matter how? And if you can not change the course of things - how can you prevent getting AIDS? Poverty and fatalism are major obstacles in the fight against HIV/AIDS in Africa. By Per Bergholdt Jensen, Information Officer 29. October 2004 The fatalistic vision of life in the African societies has often been blamed for a somewhat indifferent attitude towards HIV/AIDS. The belief that all things that happen in life, good or bad, were bound to happen from the beginning, some times make it difficult to change people’s behavior concerning HIV/AIDS. God´s Will “In a lot of cases people don’t see they have options and personal responsibility. Many persons see it like this: It is the will of God whether I get AIDS or not. And there is nothing I can do to change that. Some people don’t see how their own actions can have an influence on their lives”, traveling HIV/AIDS adviser Kirsten Madsen explains. Kirsten has been employed by MS to give seminars about HIV/AIDS. She has been working and traveling in Africa and Central America for the last nine months and has spoken to hundreds of people about the deadly disease. Poverty and Indifference One of the persons Kirsten Madsen has talked to is Matilde Tovola. Matilde is a young woman who is participating in one of Kirsten’s seminars in Nampula in the Northern part of Mozambique. Matilde offers another explanation of people’s behavior towards HIV/AIDS. “Many people have a very hard life, and therefore they don’t think so much about the risks of HIV/AIDS”, Matilde Tovola explains, touching another subject, the one of poverty. Poverty is undeniably to be blamed concerning the way people approach HIV/AIDS. And an explanation of the fatalistic approach to HIV/AIDS is found in the harsh living conditions of the poor. Same Shit – Different Name People in the poor neighborhoods know they could easily die from cholera or malaria, and therefore HIV/AIDS is just seen as another unpreventable illness like the others. So whether you die of AIDS or of malaria does not make a big difference. Or to put it more bluntly: Same shit – different name. “Poverty makes it difficult for people to choose their own lives. And poor people often have insufficient access to information. I sometimes have the impression that the big campaigns about condoms on television live their own lives without ever getting out to the poor people in the rural areas or the city slum,” Kirsten Madsen states. An Elephant in the Room “To fight HIV/AIDS it is necessary to have a change in attitude and culture”, Kirsten explains. “It is crucial to talk openly about this illness in order to overcome superstition and myths.”To illustrate this point Kirsten is assisted by an elephant. The elephant is shown on a poster. It has written HIV on its belly and it is sitting in a room with an AIDS patient and his relatives. The text on the poster reads: There is an elephant sitting in the room, but nobody talks about it.
17-10-2014 12:27
ms.dk AIDS and African Fatalism
2 af 2
http://www.actionaiddenmark.org/sw11196.asp?usepf=true
And this is exactly what Kirsten Madsen has been doing these past nine months along with the participants of the seminars all over the world.
17-10-2014 12:27