HIV / AIDS AwarenessIntroduction: HIV/AIDS has reached epidemic proportions in India, which now has the largest number of people living with HIV/AIDS in the world after South Africa. Andhra Pradesh has been particularly badly affected.

NASA headquarters stands next to highway 5, the main north-south highway along India’s east coast. Many of the poor men in the area, most of whom are Dalits, migrate along the highway looking for seasonal work, leaving their villages and families for days, weeks or months at a time.

Roadside prostitution is common along the highway and because both prostitutes and clients fail to take precautions many contract the AIDS virus and take it back home.

The Foundation for Rural and Social Development found that around 30 percent of the sex workers on the highway are HIV positive. Shockingly, the study also found that most of the sex workers have children. NASA conducts special counselling sessions for both migrants and sex workers to curb this epidemic.

Interaction with HIV/AIDS Sufferers

The NASA team uses cultural programs, filmshows, street plays, and health education camps to educate villagers about HIV/AIDS.

Awareness Camps NASA conducts awareness camps once a month in 15 local mandals (groups of villages). These awareness camps have brought changes among those infected with HIV/AIDS. Now they are able to say that they will not spread this disease to others. This is one way to control HIV/AIDS. NASA continously supports these people in several ways.

Food and Financial Assistance NASA gives financial support to all families affected by HIV/AIDS. It gives 200 rupees for each person and altogether 350 people are receiving financial assistance. NASA also provides food and clothes. NASA feels that it is not enough for the people have no other means to support them.

Councelling Apart from education and awareness-raising, NASA offers individual and group counselling to HIV/AIDS-affected men and women to give them confidence and prolong their lives. NASA encourages sex workers to find alternatives and lobbies the Government to establish resettlement schemes.

EducationNASA distributes pamphlets and booklets to the people so they can know more about HIV/AIDS.  Quotations by eminent personalities and information on AIDS is printed in the pamphlets.

Rehabilitation Centre HIV/AIDS sufferers are alienated from their homes, villages and wider society. NASA has studied these people and concluded that they are suffering not only from stigma but also from emotional and psychological problems. NASA therefore decided that they need a Rehabilitation Centre which will provide a new life that will make their stay happy and peaceful as long as they live.

Addressing the basic needs of HIV/AIDS sufferers

Siva and Chandini

Siva and Chandini A Case Study These children’s father migrated out of state for seasonal work like many Dalit laborers, visited a prostitute, got infected with HIV/AIDS, and transmitted the deadly disease to his wife.  Both of them died leaving Siva and Chandini destitute.  NASA’s director brought the two children to the “Light of Love Children’s Home”.

1. Family victimised by HIV/AIDS - 2.Anusha - HIV/AIDS Sufferer

1. Child was entrusted to NASA Director and breathed her last ( Died of HIV/AIDS ) - 2.Reebecca and her mother HIV/ADIS SufferersHIV/AIDS)

 

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