Sex: Are Teens Listening?*

These days, the relationship between age and sex has become more blurred. In our current media landscape, we see images of sex portrayed in commercials, music videos, and television shows increasingly geared toward younger audiences. Even the way we talk about sex seems to have changed. Why is it that sex is no longer as taboo a subject? And is this change a good thing? Diane Levin, a children’s author, just wrote “So Sex, So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood” in which she talks about ways parents can protect their children from the dangers that seem to be all around us. Limiting the negative information that children can find in a web search has become a popular pastime for worrying parents, while simultaneously more websites for teens abound that give all kinds of information about sex, some helpful and others less so. Teens used to get their information only from parents, schools, or by word-of-mouth. Now they seem to be able to access it from anywhere, and more than that, it is readily provided to them. A battle seems to exist between advertisers, who see a new and profitable market in children, and the parents and loved ones that are involved in these children’s lives.

With the landscape changing dramatically and undeniably for newer generations, we now see stronger opposition from the same proponents that have been waging the abstinence-only fight for years, with much support coming from religious institutions. Just recently, the National Abstinence Education Association began the Parents for Truth campaign aimed at enlisting over 1 million adults in a lobbying effort against comprehensive sex education in public schools. At the same time, health care providers at Planned Parenthood, an organization that supports reproductive freedom, cite studies that show teaching abstinence in schools does nothing to curb sexual behavior for teenagers in the long run. Many say that if things are changing, the way we talk to kids needs to change. The general assumption is that there is more honesty and less sugarcoating of information for our kids, and we could benefit from filtering and articulating the barrage of information about sex so that children can still learn the facts and what is morally sound from their parents. This might mean more pressure on parents to have the “sex talk” at earlier ages.

Is there a problem in having the wrong information versus having no information? What do the competing viewpoints of the media, churches, and parents suggest about how our culture is changing and the ways we think about sex? Why do you think there so much controversy? And what about the bigger issue of sex education and its place in schools, the main source of information for our children: is there a right or wrong way to teach or learn about it?

*Written by Ashley Villarreal, TDN Local Health Reporter

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In Africa, HIV/AIDS Awareness Through Performance*

Using traditional arts to in raise awareness about HIV/AIDS is more than a local phenomenon.  The following article centers around a festival held in 2003 in a village in Guinea, West Africa, yet it deals broadly with the benefits as well as the potential risks of disseminating health information through the arts.  Here organizers and health experts in Guinea reveal that while performance can be a vital tool for conveying messages, it can also be a liability if artists aren’t well informed. 

A village in Guinea may seem worlds away.  However, given that Africa is home to 60% of the global population living with HIV/AIDS, any larger perspective on the disease must inevitably look to the continent.  And since Transdiaspora Network’s interventions employ Afro-Caribbean traditions such as storytelling and dance, this article’s sojourn could also be conceived as a return.

Friguiagbe, Guinea, September 2003:

Under a florescent floodlight, some 2,000 people—mostly residents of this town in Guinea’s coastal region—gather until the wee hours of morning for a festival of music, theater and dance.  While the traditional melodies performed here are centuries old, their lyrics are decidedly modern.

  “Use a condom!” chants one ensemble. “Or else stay celibate!”

The Ballet Wassasso from the capital city of Conakry sings the message in French and Susu, the local language, before regaling the audience with a dance of flailing limbs, an explosion of drums, and a shower of prophylactics.

As the number of Africans living with HIV/AIDS approaches 30 million, this event, the Festival of African and Guinean Folklore (FESTAFOLG), has joined an Africa-wide trend integrating AIDS education and traditional culture.  The Festival’s theme: “Stigmatization and discrimination associated with HIV/AIDS, the cultural context.”

“Folkloric culture is an important platform for relaying messages,” said Alfred Houlemou, a Guinean television journalist and the Festival’s principal organizer. Houlemou explained that the West African singer/historian, the griot, traditionally plays a social role not only as a traveling artist but also as a conveyor of practical information from village to village. 

“Will you say to the people of Friguiabe, ‘Hey, I’m going to send you an e-mail with information on preventing AIDS?’ No—the medium is wrong,” said Papa Fadiara Cissokho, who organizes a festival each year in Louga, Senegal. Even drumming, which he says replicates spoken language in many traditional African cultures, is being used to further AIDS awareness. “Rhythm is the best vector of communication in Africa,” he said.

The Paris-based International Council of Organizations of Festivals and Folklore says FESTAFOLG is one of many African festivals that have used folk culture as a platform for addressing societal concerns, ranging from ethnic conflict to sustainable development. Africa Alive!, a network of media-savvy youth organizations that have become one of the continent’s largest AIDS prevention groups, also uses music festivals to relay educational messages in eight countries. And in Cameroon, the John Hopkins University School of Public Health has collaborated with Cameroonian folk artist Paul Kengmo to produce cultural events about AIDS in rural villages known as Project Ah Ta-Ah.

In Guinea, the government’s Department of Culture provided most of the $50,000 needed to produce FESTAFOLG, which featured two-dozen ensembles from Guinea, Ivory Coast and Benin. Meanwhile, a group called PRISM sponsors 10 traveling theater troupes in Upper Guinea as part of its HIV/AIDS education program. On the day of a performance, the group organizes a Mamaya—a dance for members of a particular age group—or commissions a konden—a masked dancer—to parade around the village with drummers to attract villagers to watch interactive theater performances about HIV/AIDS.

The idea of integrating traditional West African arts and HIV/AIDS education dates to at least 1993, when Antonio Francesco, a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer in Diourbel, Senegal, assembled a troupe to bring health education with support from doctors to rural villages. The group toured for several months, performing with permission of village leaders and holding seminars after each show. Two months later, a health team was sent to conduct random interviews in each village, and found that villagers both remembered and understood the message.

PRISM has seen similar results. A survey conducted a year into its program found that compared to the population of Beyla—a control province in Guinea’s forest region which received no HIV/AIDS intervention—Upper Guinean men were twice as likely to use a condom.

But some HIV/AIDS workers warn that purveying health facts through the arts can be risky. “Theater and music and traditional ballets are good for attracting big audiences and presenting basic information,” said Kimberly Ross, HIV/AIDS adviser in Guinea for the U.S. Agency for International Development. “But they haven’t been effective in addressing myths and misconceptions.”

At the Friguiagbe festival, a group called Ballet Saamato performed a scene in which a comb and razor used by an unhygienic barber were said to be contaminated with the HIV virus. Such an infection “is possible,” said Mackenzie Dabo, former coordinator for the Peace Corps’ HIV/AIDS programs in Guinea, “but the chances are slim.”

Many of the festival’s scenes portraying death from AIDS included a sexually promiscuous female character, usually a prostitute. Such depictions are common in educational theater “because they’re funny and easy to represent, but they reinforce the stereotype that only prostitutes and promiscuous people can get AIDS,” Ross said.

Without consultation from knowledgeable AIDS workers, cultural performances may even reinforce misconceptions and add to the societal stigma suffered by many AIDS victims, Ross said. However, most health workers add that simply by addressing the topic of sex openly, folk performances can break through the fundamental taboo about discussing sexuality that is one of the biggest barriers to AIDS education in Guinea and elsewhere in Africa. They say traditional culture is a powerful awareness-raising tool when coupled with accurate information, thoughtful production, and discussions following each performance.

*Written by Joshua Cohen, a PhD student at Columbia University’s Art History Department, who aims to change western framings of African arts.

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Fighting HIV/AIDS in French*

I travelled to France a few weeks ago for a family reunion, and as I walked the streets of Paris where spring was just starting to bud, I noticed large flyers posted all around town, sporting bright red ribbons and big letters that read “SIDACTION 2009.” My curiosity was peaked and I had to find out more about this Sidaction, or “AIDSaction” in English.

Sidaction was founded in 1994 as a fundraising mechanism to collect funds for research and to support organizations engaged in the fight against HIV/AIDS, especially those located in the French oversees departments (i.e.  Martinique and Guadeloupe) and territories where the need was greatest.  During that first fundraising drive, Sidaction raised 45.7 million Euros (or about 61 million USD, in today’s dollars) from 1.4 million donors! This was a stellar accomplishment, which unfortunately was never repeated, perhaps a sign of changing times and changing priorities. In 1996, Sidaction launched its second fundraising drive, raising a bit less than 10 million Euros. In 2006, it raised 5.1 million Euros and in 2007 5.9 million Euros.  

This year, on March 20, 21 and 22, eleven television channels and 5 radio stations joined forces and mobilized their teams for Sidaction 2009, to celebrate its 15^th anniversary. For three days, journalists, news anchors and television personalities took turns to call on the public to support the cause.  Across the entire country, more than 350 cultural, sporting and educational events were organized with the goal of raising awareness about HIV/ AIDS, as well as funds. In three days, Sidaction raised 6 450 000 Euros in pledges, representing an increase of 500 000 Euros over the previous year – a good sign! 50% of the funds raised will go to support prevention programs and those already sick with HIV-AIDS, and 50% will go to funding research. Sidaction has pledged to make these funds available this year, without delay, to ensure that the researchers and organizations recipient of the funds can dedicate themselves fully to fighting HIV/AIDS as opposed to spending valuable time looking for financing.    

In the fight against HIV/AIDS, mobilizing and engaging the public is crucial to preventing the spread of the virus.  Raising funds to finance this prevention, from the community to the international level is also key. For those interested in getting involved, you don’t have to travel to France or anywhere else.  Take the first step right here in New York City by participating in AIDS Walk New York, on May 17^th. Click here to get more information about how you can sign up and walk with the TDN team! And watch the video.

*Written by Sophie Cardona, TDN Treasurer, from Paris, France.

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