HIV/AIDS education campaigns ignore deaf children

Youth prevention efforts have led to high levels of HIV/AIDS awareness, and appear to be increasing safer sexual practices among sexually active young people in countries such as South Africa and Zambia.

But these efforts have ignored the deaf community, leaving them dangerously uninformed about HIV/AIDS.

According to the Kenya Society for Deaf Children (KSDC), deaf children in Kenya lack access to even the most basic information about the disease.

"When they were told in sign language that they were HIV-positive, some deaf people thought it was a nice thing because the signed word 'positive' is something good," KSDC public relations officer, George Gachanja, told PlusNews.

The majority of deaf people in the country were from rural areas and hardly knew how to read and write. "Our research shows that most deaf children of school-going age are not even in school, so they have no way of learning about AIDS," Gachanja said.

The sexual abuse of deaf young girls was also a problem. "Because they are so gullible and don't have any information to empower them, they are easier to get so they are taken advantage of and exploited in every way," he added.

In South Africa, the Deaf Federation of South Africa (DEFSA), is working with the department of health on a project to produce HIV/AIDS and sexual health education audio-visual material for deaf schools.

"At the moment we have nothing in particular for deaf children, but we are working to address this. So far we have transcribed AIDS awareness materials into Braille and have programmes for blind children," the education department's HIV/AIDS coordinator, Brennant Smith, told PlusNews.

But DEFSA HIV/AIDS coordinator, Francis Prinsloo said the lack of information was also a problem for the deaf adult community. One of the main reasons for the ignorance about HIV/AIDS was that information had not been made accessible, or disseminated in the proper medium, to deaf people, she said.

"They can't read and they can't watch these educational dramas on TV or listen to them on the radio," Prinsloo added.

There was also a lack of trained health workers to deal with deaf adults living with HIV/AIDS. Health workers in state medical facilities did not receive proper training and could not communicate adequately with deaf people.

Due to these communication barriers, training more deaf service providers was a possible solution, she said.

"Our biggest problem is the need for trained deaf counsellors. We have made progress in training deaf AIDS educators, but the support system for deaf people living with HIV/AIDS [PWAs] is practically non-existent," Prinsloo said. Support groups for deaf PWAs were also rare.

DEFSA has embarked on a series of training programmes for deaf people to become HIV/AIDS educators.

"Hopefully with more funding we will be able to start HIV/AIDS awareness projects, but it is difficult. With all the language barriers, people don't understand them and don't want to help," Prinsloo said.