The Savanne Regional Youth Council implemented a 3-day HIV/AIDS awareness workshop in Mauritius with the aim of raising awareness among regional youth leaders about the disease and of reducing stigmatization in the community.
Who's involved?
Project leader: Qadir Mahamoodally
Lead organisation: Savanne Regional Youth Council
Other organisations: Ministry of Youth and Sport; National Youth Council
Objectives:
- Create a sense of awareness amongst the youngsters against HIV/Aids
- Prevent the society from being destroyed by HIV/Aids
- Help youngsters to understand the true meaning of sexuality and the different causes, which might lead to HIV/Aids.
- Make the young generation aware of how these diseases are destroying the whole world.
- Show different ways to prevent us from being affected by this dangerous disease.
- Motivate the youngsters to create a sense of awareness against HIV/Aids in their community.
- Encourage them to organize different types of activities to fight this disease.
Activities:
The residential workshop took place on 16-18 March 2007, at the Senior Citizen Recreational Centre at Pointe aux Sable and was so popular that it far exceeded expectations. Eighty-five participants eventually took part, much more than the expected 50, which resulted unfortunately in many others being declined. The debates and discussion sessions held by professionals included topics such as:
- The current HIV/AIDS situation in Mauritius;
- How to protect oneself against HIV/AIDS;
- People living with AIDS;
- How to write-up and implement projects.
Results:
It was expected that after the workshop the participants would return to their region and implement a project to sensitize their community. Examples of these projects included a music concert, visits to deprived areas and a football tournament where HIV/AIDS information were distributed amongst the participants.
As mentioned by Qadir in his final report, "This project has given us the chance to learn lots of new things regarding HIV/AIDS. It is rare to get such a type of workshop here in Mauritius where you got so many youngsters interested in participating. Normally, such workshops are organized by big organizations dealing directly with HIV/AIDS but it was the first time that a youth organization had organized it. Even the minister of youth and sports, Honorable Sylvio Tang was very satisfied with this workshop and has make an appeal to other youth organizations to follow this good initiative."
Downloads:
Final Report [.pdf 283Kb]