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A fight to the finish

By Wen Chihua (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-10-23 09:16

A Youth Ambassador at a ceremony to announce the country's first group of Youth Ambassadors during a HIV/AIDS education campaign in 2006. Ma Jian

She visited young migrant workers in Beipei as Youth Ambassador for the M.A.C AIDS Fund in China, which last year donated 1 billion yuan ($142 million) to UNICEF China to help prevent the spread of HIV among 15- to 24-year-olds.

A satellite district in northern Chongqing, Beipei borders rural areas and has a population of 680,000, most of whom came to the city as migrant workers straight out of junior high school.

"These people are too young to fully know how society works," says Ou Kaihua, director of the Beipei Health Education Institute.

"Many young women work in nightclubs and the young men turn to drug abuse. That makes the task of HIV/AIDS prevention quite tough."

Ou says that the number of HIV infections climbed to 368 by the end of 2007 since the first HIV/AIDS patient was reported in Beipei in 1999. "Most of them are young migrant workers. Most have contracted the disease from intravenous drug abuse and unsafe sex practices," Ou says.

There are 2,000 sex workers and 3,000 registered drug users in Beipei, mostly poor, young, migrant workers. Their ignorance about the transmission and prevention of HIV/AIDS is the primary culprit behind the spread of the disease, Ou says.

In collaboration with the Chinese government, the UNICEF Office for China last year initiated a program with Youth Ambassadors called Unite for Children, Unite against AIDS.

"The Youth Ambassadors are young volunteers who have demonstrated an extraordinary commitment to halting the spread of AIDS and reducing stigma and discrimination in China," says Ken Legins, chief of the HIV/AIDS Section with UNICEF Office for China.

Chosen by a poll on www.youth.cn, the official website of the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League of China, these ambassadors are first trained on self-protection from HIV, then go out into communities under the UNICEF programs.

Youth Ambassador Qin Zhichao, 21, a biology major from the Southwestern University in downtown Beipei, joined Li Yuchun in Beipei.

Qin says that compared with celebrity ambassadors, whose participation "produces sensational effects", the lesser known Youth Ambassadors work to bring about "a quieter and deeper influence on youths" as they can frequently visit those at risk, whereas celebrities cannot.

"We work closely with those around us until they really understand the facts about AIDS. Then they can spread the knowledge to their friends," says Qin.

One beneficiary of the new wisdom is Liao Yuqin who sells food outside Qin's university. She thought AIDS was a city disease caused by love (AIDS in Chinese is ai zi, which sounds the same as "being caused by love"). "So I told my daughter not to go out with city boys," she says laughing.

One day her 15-year-old daughter came home from school and told her what AIDS really was. That was when she discovered it was not a city disease, and was preventable.

There are more than 300 Youth Ambassadors in the frontline against AIDS. "They provide more than information. They are out there challenging potential drug abusers and sex workers to change their behavior," says Wei Nanfang, from the National Institute for Health Education at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Given the social stigma and ignorance, UNICEF's Ken Legins says efforts to raise public awareness of HIV/AIDS should be consistently promoted. "Mobilizing young people and role models like Li Yuchun can help ensure the HIV/AIDS prevention message reaches more people more effectively," he says.

Liao summed up everyone's feelings: "I have only one child. I don't want her to die from ignorance or stupidity. I want her to enjoy a full life," she says.

(China Daily 10/23/2008 page20)

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