The Chaos Within - More than protein pills
It’s been almost a month weeks since I got back from the conference in Canada.
Almost a month of frenzied activity.
Wake Up Pune meetings, Share The Vision programmes, Be HIV Positive sessions, inquiries in to stigma and discrimination at City of Child, T-shirt campaign kick off, MSM gathering, help plan an HIV/IDU conference and of course those ubiquitous reports that do not write themselves!
I finished my August report, albeit horribly late, and decided that I will celebrate with a blog! There is so much to write about that I have this ' funny feeling' - I love funny feelings... they help me focus like nothing else does - that I will end up writing about nothing. Have I just contradicted myself? Surely I have? Let’s see…
Wake Up Pune: This initiative has been postponed for November. Dr. Jasmine of Project Concern International suggested the postponement and I agreed. We need to plan it and ensure that we know what kind of impact it has made. For this we require a scientific pre and post programme survey. Have I said this all before? I am still in report mode.
Evidence base! This is crucial if we are to prove that the targeted intervention programmes we run are effective. Wake Up Pune is potentially huge, and to let it go by - effort, funds, time, - without evaluating its impact is unforgivable. The National AIDS Research Institute has agreed to help us. Brilliant!
Share The Vision: Avinash has done a fantastic job of running the Share The Vision programmes in Tadiwala Road. The vision is a model community in the battle against HIV/AIDS. Jane Zhu's research on stigmatizing attitudes and behaviour has shown us that we are miles away from realising this vision, and that the sharing of it, has had little or no success. I'd like to think different of course, and the targeted sample in Jane's study were not the groups we have made most headway with... but still, the community does not consist merely of the groups that we make headway with... as this blog goes, you will find that the groups we have ignored thus far are crucial in our bid for a model community.
Poster campaigns especially designed for the community is one idea we have come up with, and a local radio network! Sounds bizarre eh? Fuck... let's see what we can do. If we have a Deep Griha local station for Tadiwala Road and of course other communities it would be a fantastic way of disseminating information, be it about HIV or anything else?
The power of radio has often been spoken of, and a radio station dedicated to local development issues sounds like a plan... albeit a logistical nightmare when we actually explore the implementation of such a project! Is it even legal? Initial inquiries suggest there is no legislation in place for a local radio station. But, again, let’s see…
The Be HIV Positive sessions are now strengthened with the 'positive' t-shirt campaign which has the three point positive programme on the back:
Last Friday Siddhi, one of the dancers, and I went out to dinner. A date! We talked a long time about the MSM community in Pune, about HIV risk perception etc, and of course about the choices one makes with regard to sexuality. It was a wonderfully open discussion, and we followed up dinner at La Dolce Vita with a drink at Lush, a local night club. When we started to dance I realised that Pune may still not be a place where two guys - especially one who looks as attractive as Siddhi; he was in a pair of white tight trousers and a sequined white west, wore a nose stud and hoop earrings, and had long copper tinted hair down to his shoulders - can go out an dance together without attracting attention. I had fun just looking at the expressions that followed our every move. And the boy can move.
The HIV/IDU conference was on Thursday. The HIV agencies and narcotics agencies in Pune had thus far claimed that there were NO Injecting Drug Users in Pune. Sounds naive. And the conference, which was held at Deep Griha, showed us how naive this claim is. In just over a month, the Mukti - Sangan team identified approximately 100 IDUs in the city through a rapid survey. This will form the basis for a Pune Action Plan later this month.
The MSM community and IDU community are largely ignored by agencies working within an urban slum community. They are marginalised by attitudes and behaviour. And some in the MSM and IDU communities admit that the attitudes and behaviour that marginalise them are often their own.
There are social drivers here that need to be examined. And as always nothing is black and white. Yet, even though working amongst the MSM and IDU communities is not going to be easy, is it something that agencies like Deep Griha should shy away from? DISHA will not. A model community is inclusive. A model community that ignores the MSM or IDU community has failed as a model.
We have much to learn, and much of that learning will not come from a conference, but rather from interaction with people within the MSM and IDU community.
My team was not prepared for the behaviour of some of the guys at the MSM gathering. Poor Santosh was a little traumatized I think, and the girls for the most part had their mouths covered in the common gesture of shock at what was being said by the more emboldened MSM veterans. This dissipated as the day wore on. The bus ride home was a testament to this.
We have just, today, had our first meeting with IDUs in Tadiwala Road. IDUs we never searched out before the conference. IDUs who had always been there, either by the river, or next to the railway hall. It was a preliminary meeting. We are not here to turn you into the cops. We are here to learn from you about how we can possibly help.
The team has to be prepared before we engage with these communities. They have undergone training just last week on how to approach the IDU community. More training is required. They need further interaction with MSM and IDU communities. It is not going to be easy, and perceptions do not change overnight.
Stigma at City of Child… is it possible? Yes. Perceptions do not change overnight. Sustained HIV education and sensitization programmes are required. City of Child, I believe, will one day open its doors again to HIV+ people. Until that day, we will continue to fight stigma and discrimination and educate and re-educate… re-education is crucial. The trite ‘un-learning’ is required if we are to move forward.
Major Tom to Ground Control... I think we're going to need more than protein pills.
Almost a month of frenzied activity.
Wake Up Pune meetings, Share The Vision programmes, Be HIV Positive sessions, inquiries in to stigma and discrimination at City of Child, T-shirt campaign kick off, MSM gathering, help plan an HIV/IDU conference and of course those ubiquitous reports that do not write themselves!
I finished my August report, albeit horribly late, and decided that I will celebrate with a blog! There is so much to write about that I have this ' funny feeling' - I love funny feelings... they help me focus like nothing else does - that I will end up writing about nothing. Have I just contradicted myself? Surely I have? Let’s see…
Wake Up Pune: This initiative has been postponed for November. Dr. Jasmine of Project Concern International suggested the postponement and I agreed. We need to plan it and ensure that we know what kind of impact it has made. For this we require a scientific pre and post programme survey. Have I said this all before? I am still in report mode.
Evidence base! This is crucial if we are to prove that the targeted intervention programmes we run are effective. Wake Up Pune is potentially huge, and to let it go by - effort, funds, time, - without evaluating its impact is unforgivable. The National AIDS Research Institute has agreed to help us. Brilliant!
Share The Vision: Avinash has done a fantastic job of running the Share The Vision programmes in Tadiwala Road. The vision is a model community in the battle against HIV/AIDS. Jane Zhu's research on stigmatizing attitudes and behaviour has shown us that we are miles away from realising this vision, and that the sharing of it, has had little or no success. I'd like to think different of course, and the targeted sample in Jane's study were not the groups we have made most headway with... but still, the community does not consist merely of the groups that we make headway with... as this blog goes, you will find that the groups we have ignored thus far are crucial in our bid for a model community.
Poster campaigns especially designed for the community is one idea we have come up with, and a local radio network! Sounds bizarre eh? Fuck... let's see what we can do. If we have a Deep Griha local station for Tadiwala Road and of course other communities it would be a fantastic way of disseminating information, be it about HIV or anything else?
The power of radio has often been spoken of, and a radio station dedicated to local development issues sounds like a plan... albeit a logistical nightmare when we actually explore the implementation of such a project! Is it even legal? Initial inquiries suggest there is no legislation in place for a local radio station. But, again, let’s see…
The Be HIV Positive sessions are now strengthened with the 'positive' t-shirt campaign which has the three point positive programme on the back:
- Positive about educating yourself and others on HIV
- Positive about raising awareness in your wider community
- Positive about reaching out to those living with affected by HIV
Last Friday Siddhi, one of the dancers, and I went out to dinner. A date! We talked a long time about the MSM community in Pune, about HIV risk perception etc, and of course about the choices one makes with regard to sexuality. It was a wonderfully open discussion, and we followed up dinner at La Dolce Vita with a drink at Lush, a local night club. When we started to dance I realised that Pune may still not be a place where two guys - especially one who looks as attractive as Siddhi; he was in a pair of white tight trousers and a sequined white west, wore a nose stud and hoop earrings, and had long copper tinted hair down to his shoulders - can go out an dance together without attracting attention. I had fun just looking at the expressions that followed our every move. And the boy can move.
The HIV/IDU conference was on Thursday. The HIV agencies and narcotics agencies in Pune had thus far claimed that there were NO Injecting Drug Users in Pune. Sounds naive. And the conference, which was held at Deep Griha, showed us how naive this claim is. In just over a month, the Mukti - Sangan team identified approximately 100 IDUs in the city through a rapid survey. This will form the basis for a Pune Action Plan later this month.
The MSM community and IDU community are largely ignored by agencies working within an urban slum community. They are marginalised by attitudes and behaviour. And some in the MSM and IDU communities admit that the attitudes and behaviour that marginalise them are often their own.
There are social drivers here that need to be examined. And as always nothing is black and white. Yet, even though working amongst the MSM and IDU communities is not going to be easy, is it something that agencies like Deep Griha should shy away from? DISHA will not. A model community is inclusive. A model community that ignores the MSM or IDU community has failed as a model.
We have much to learn, and much of that learning will not come from a conference, but rather from interaction with people within the MSM and IDU community.
My team was not prepared for the behaviour of some of the guys at the MSM gathering. Poor Santosh was a little traumatized I think, and the girls for the most part had their mouths covered in the common gesture of shock at what was being said by the more emboldened MSM veterans. This dissipated as the day wore on. The bus ride home was a testament to this.
We have just, today, had our first meeting with IDUs in Tadiwala Road. IDUs we never searched out before the conference. IDUs who had always been there, either by the river, or next to the railway hall. It was a preliminary meeting. We are not here to turn you into the cops. We are here to learn from you about how we can possibly help.
The team has to be prepared before we engage with these communities. They have undergone training just last week on how to approach the IDU community. More training is required. They need further interaction with MSM and IDU communities. It is not going to be easy, and perceptions do not change overnight.
Stigma at City of Child… is it possible? Yes. Perceptions do not change overnight. Sustained HIV education and sensitization programmes are required. City of Child, I believe, will one day open its doors again to HIV+ people. Until that day, we will continue to fight stigma and discrimination and educate and re-educate… re-education is crucial. The trite ‘un-learning’ is required if we are to move forward.
Major Tom to Ground Control... I think we're going to need more than protein pills.
posted by Deep Griha at 3:07 am
1 Comments:
Hey Hans, thought it was about time I dropped you a line to say that I love reading the Blog, and I think it was an ingenious idea to set one up. It sounds like a pretty exciting time at Deep Griha at the moment, and like a lot of really cool initaitives are being set up. Basically just wanted to say 'Good Luck' with everything, and I hope all works out the way your anticipating. Say 'Hi' to Paul for me aswell! Hannah Porter
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