World Vision Nepal

“Today I am able to tell my friends back home to disengage from activities that can lead to HIV as I am knowledgeable and don’t feel shy to discuss this anymore,” says Sanchita (15), who studies in the eighth grade in Bode Higher Secondary School, Thimi Municipality, Bhaktapur.

“We are not only aware, but capable of discussing HIV and AIDS with our family and relatives too,” says Manahar (15), a classmate of Sanchita’s.

“I have advised my community folks who are drug users about the consequences of their behaviour which may lead to HIV, and hope this will help reduce their at-risk activities,” says Santosh (16), who studies in the ninth grade in the same school.

Sanchita, Manahar and Santosh are among the many young students are in the 13-16 year age group of Bode Higher Secondary School who are now open to discussing HIV and AIDS without any reservations and have been the mouthpiece for behavioural change in their communities.

Learning about HIV and AIDS in schools of Nepal is not common. Ask young children at school about HIV and AIDS and there is usually a silence or a look of indifference implying that it is a taboo. The stigma of HIV and AIDS is not only attached to people living with it but also learning about it. This holds true in many communities of Nepal, and Bhaktapur District is one of them.

Though Bhaktapur is one of the three districts that lies in the valley of the capital city, adjoining Kathmandu and Lalitpur districts, it is still only on the threshold of modernisation. The population that live there, mostly indigenous Newari and Tamang, depend on agricultural farming for their livelihood and are quite conservative. However, today children in schools there are open to learning more about current and sensitive issues affecting their lives, issues such as HIV and AIDS.

With the support of Bhaktapur ADP, Bode Higher Secondary School in Thimi Municipality, is one of the schools that has been running weekly classes on HIV and AIDS alongside the usual curriculum for eighth and ninth grade adolescents. The school has managed to allocate one hour every week for each grade for such classes, classes which have become a favourite with many students.

The course given on HIV and AIDS is a sixteen-week session, with one class every week targeted for a particular grade containing lessons on reproductive health, at-risk behaviour, risk analysis, safe sex, Injecting Drug Users (IDU), Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI), Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD), HIV transmission, as well as case studies on stigma and discrimination using a methodology of games and pictorial learning alongside group discussions and interaction.

Parents are also invited to a two-day orientation and sharing session which highlights their role in monitoring their children’s behaviour at home.

“The last time I went to my village for a festival, I shared what I had learnt in these classes with my friends back home and when I returned I received calls from them for my counselling regarding safe sexual behaviour,” continues Manahar, a migrant from Dolakha District in the central north-east region of Nepal. There are many students at Bode Higher Secondary School like Manahar, hailing from different parts of Nepal, whose parents have migrated to the valley in search of work.

“When the classes were first held, girls and boys just giggled in two different corners of the class, but now everyone wants to participate proactively in the sessions and children have so many questions,” says Mukul Ghimire, teacher and resource person for the HIV and AIDS for Nepal Youth Society, one of the partner organisations of Bhaktapur ADP’s HIV Project.

Dhruba Lal Shrestha, principal of the school, says, “We are glad to see the changes in our students after these sessions on HIV and AIDS. Previously we often heard complaints from our surrounding neighbourhood about our students engaging in smoking and courting activities outside school premises, but now that has also reduced. Adolescent girls in this school have also formed informal groups for sharing and helping each other in issues related to them.”

Bhawani Khadga, teacher of population studies at the school, says, “When I talked about educating children on the use of condom long before, there was a huge protest from the school management but today with the initiative of World Vision, we have been able to hold classes on such topics freely, and now we have also heard that our students have visited local health posts to get contraceptives for safer sex.”

Bhaktapur ADP has been implementing Bhaktapur HIV Project in all its working VDCs, i.e. Katunje, Changunarayan, Sudal, Sipadol, Nangkhel, as well as five wards, viz. Chapacho, Balkumari, Tigani, Bode and Nagdesh of Thimi Municipality. Funded by WV Canada, the project started in January 2009 and aims to minimise further HIV infections among adolescents and women in its area with a focus on adolescents as a primary target group by generating awareness through school-based initiatives. School-based activities are targeted not only at school-going adolescents but also at school management committees, teachers and the parents of adolescents in the community. Awareness-raising in schools is being used, recognising that primary approach to prevention lies in behaviour change.

Krishna Giri, HIV and AIDS Coordinator, Bhaktapur ADP, says, “Introducing lessons on HIV and AIDS in schools in Bhaktapur was a huge challenge initially. We had principals who would not want to talk about HIV and AIDS, let alone introducing these lessons. But after couple of workshops we organised for school management committees and teachers, we were able to get their consent and also their inputs in designing a course for young students that would not only help children understand HIV and AIDS but also identify personal at-risk behaviours.”

Bhaktapur ADP has been supporting local partners, Nepal Youth Society and Siddhi Memorial Foundation, in running sessions on HIV and AIDS in 18 different schools in Bhaktapur. The objective of these classes are to increase the knowledge of HIV and AIDS among adolescents, change their attitude towards HIV and AIDS and make them aware of their roles and responsibilities so that they can play an effective role in the prevention of drug abuse and HIV and AIDS in their own communities. To date such classes, targeting at-risk age groups, have benefited 2,086 students in Bhaktapur.