Photos from 29 March Information and Training Session, Tadiwala Rd.

The new and expanded DISHA team, red saris for Tadiwala Rd. and white saris for Ramtekadi, begin the information session by exhorting the assembled crowd to join them in the fight against HIV and AIDS and the stigmatization and discrimination that accompany it.


Santosh and the DISHA team out in the Tadiwala Rd. community, educating not only their audience, but also the new members of DISHA who will soon start to work in the Ramtekadi community.
Avinash delivers information to a large and diverse crowd of all ages packed into a Tadiwala Rd. community centre.


To tackle misconceptions relating to caring for an HIV positive person, the DISHA team enacts the visit of an HIV positive person to a holy person to be cured. The prescription is a glass of water with a squeezed lemon and plentiful chilli powder. In exchange for money the holy person also cautions against going to a doctor because she or he will only be interested in the patient's money and won't be able to help with HIV.

Training Day

The DISHA team for Tadiwala Rd., resplendent in their trademark red saris and HIV and AIDS awareness pins, descended on a Tadiwala Rd. neighbourhood this afternoon, accompanied by the new DISHA team to be deployed in Ramtekadi, to deliver a direct and informative presentation on HIV and AIDS to an audience of about 100 community members ranging from children to the elderly.
Upon their departure from the Deep Griha building, their procession through the streets of the Tadiwala Rd. neighbourhood created a buzz, and the curious followed to see what would ensue. With typical efficiency the DISHA team set to work plastering a community centre pavilion with HIV and AIDS awareness posters in Hindi and Marathi and hanging the banners of Wake Up Pune and DISHA.
If grassroots work in the community is the best way to reach people, this was a clinic. The varying styles used, from street play, to lecture, to humour, to serious discussion drew in passers-by and held the attention of those who sat from the beginning.
A powerful statistic is that 1 in 6 people in the world is Indian, and more powerful, 1 in 10 people in the world is an Indian under 25 years old, which means a vast number are reaching not only sexual maturity but the age of branching out on their own and making decisions for themselves. Reaching this demographic early is the key the future of the fight and stopping the spread of HIV and destroying the stigma against the disease. I was pleased to see a great number of the younger demographic present and listening to the important information that DISHA presented about educating oneself on the ways that HIV can be transmitted, about making oneself aware of what stigma and discrimination can do to people with HIV, and about the appropriate ways to reach out to those effected.
Laughter erupted when a street play portion of the presentation acted out the misconception that the disease can be cured by a holy man prescribing a heavy dose of chilli powder and lemon water. Likewise more somber presentations told of the necessity to rid ourselves of stigma and discrimination if we truly wanted to help reduce the epidemic in Pune.
In the long run the part of the day that might mean the most for the Pune community however was the training session that occurred for the new DISHA extension for Ramtekadi. A communal feedback session was the culmination of a day of great training for the new team at Ramtekadi and featured lots of productive feedback amongst the DISHA staff. Yet another step on the way forward.