Central Asia is the often forgotten crossroads between east and west that the Red Cross wants to put back on the map. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan face huge humanitarian challenges in their post-Soviet Union transition. One of them is the spread of HIV. John Sparrow, British Red Cross communications delegate, reports on the efforts of the Kyrgyz Red Crescent to combat it.
"An immense increase in Afghanistan’s production of opium since the fall of the Taliban has heightened Red Cross’ fears for an AIDS disaster in Central Asia. The heroin highway – from Afghanistan to Russia and Europe – is in full operation once again, and a great deal is offloaded en route to feed the region’s growing drug habit.
"The Red Cross is warning that this is accelerating the spread of HIV and AIDS. An epidemic is underway, and most infections have been found among injecting drug users who share needles. Grinding poverty is driving everything. Drugs are an escape route the poor have access to. The epidemic could now be spreading to the general population, and sexual transmission of HIV may be on the rise.
HIV and AIDS education
"Supported by the British Red Cross, the Kyrgyz Red Crescent works to prevent the use of drugs as well as to spread knowledge about HIV and AIDS. It operates in schools and universities, on the streets, and through Red Crescent youth centres throughout the country. If people are informed, the Red Crescent argues, a disaster can be averted.
"It can be sensitive territory. A teenage volunteer in Karakol describes talking about how to use condoms in schools where there has been no sex education. 'As you can imagine, some people find it difficult to accept what we are doing,' she says.
"When a strict Islamic father in Batken heard that his daughter was working on a Red Crescent HIV programme, she was banned from attending their meetings. With British Red Cross support, the Red Crescent soldiers on in Batken, hoping to avoid further trouble by keeping girls’ and boys’ activities separate.
"The Ministry of Education endorses the school and university programmes. Project co-ordinator Asel Ibraimova says: 'In the course of one year, over 530 new volunteer instructors have reached 22,000 listeners. Much of it is peer-to-peer. Young people listen better when other young people do the talking.'
"Twenty-year-old Ayday Cholponbek Kyzu works in a pharmacy and is a trained Red Crescent instructor in Naryn, a town of 49,000 people.
"In school No. 4, Ayday has a one-hour session with 15 and 16 year olds, some of the 200 to 250 youngsters she will reach this month. None have experienced sex education, and the lesson produces some embarrassment. Girls look aghast, boys glance sheepishly at one another. The blushing soon passes. What Ayday has to say gets their full attention, and a lively session follows. They want to discuss the issues, and a multiple-answer questionnaire, filled in before the session started, shows they really need to.
Cool crescent
"Plays, rock concerts and disco parties are used to reach young people in towns and communities where there isn’t much else to do but hang around street corners. Where there is action, the Red Crescent looks it up.
"On a winter’s night in Bishkek, Asel Ibraimova and friends are clubbing, hopping around the discotheques with a 20-minute floorshow and a large supply of condoms. A TV crew follow them around, and on the ill-lit street of the second club, sex workers slip into the shadows, afraid of being on camera.
"Inside one of the discotheques, the music dies down and the lights go up. A young man called Azamat steps forward. 'Have you ever tried blowing up a condom?' he asks.
"A condom-blowing contest follows. The audience howls and screams, but there is method in Azamat’s madness.
“'So,' he says at last, 'how much do you know about HIV?'
"There’s a series of questions with prizes for people who shout correct answers. It is skilfully done. Key messages are being disseminated. Before they leave, young volunteers go from table to table, distributing condoms and literature.
"Outside, the sex workers have re-emerged and cars are cruising round. 'Hey,' yells a man from his window, seeing the Red Crescent emblem. 'Do you have a condom for me?'
“'Sure,' laughs one of the Red Crescent volunteers and wanders over. 'I also have a leaflet. If I were you sir, I’d read it.'"
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