Athletes-cum-advocates

ANOTHER group of elite athletes have signed up to be STOP HIV Champions. And no one was happier with their commitment than Luke Nayasa - a family man who has been living with HIV and has suffered some of the worst manifestations of discrimination for a decade.

The new FASANOC (Fiji Association of Sports and National Olympic Committee) STOP HIV Champions team comprise Viliame Cagibula (rugby league), Laisiasa Puamau (basketball), Seini Dobui (basketball), Gabriella Wong (badminton), Sanaila Colainima (baseball), Tuimoce Fuluna (weightlifting), Iliesa Delana (paralympic high jumper), Hussein Mira Sahib (football) and Shivam Nathan (football).

"This is a group of very special people with god-given talent and as a program, the potential impact of what they intend to do is powerful. It is visionary and it will be difficult but HIV can stop with them," Luke said, referring to this year's program theme HIV Stops with Me.

"Making a commitment to be an advocate and actually carrying this out are two very different things. But I have offered to accompany them to their events because I believe that having a person living with HIV accompany them to their events, will enhance the message."

By the end of the induction weekend, the champions were convinced that they wanted to be part of the movement towards the eradication of this health issue; that the issue of HIV/AIDS was one case where the adage ignorance is bliss is non-applicable.

In their reflections during a winding-down evening talanoa session at the Centre for Appropriate Technology Development (CATD) campus, just outside Nausori Town, it was obvious that the group acknowledged that HIV was not something restricted to the medics. After hearing both the medical and social aspect of HIV/AIDS, the athletes indicated a very personal understanding of and realisation that what they were about to commit themselves to was much bigger than them, and their sporting career.

STOP (HIV) is an acronym for Sports Training and Outreach Program; the program is about positively utilising the potential influence of elite athletes to effect behavour change, as far as ways through which the virus is spread, is concerned. A cumulative report of HIV/AIDS and AIDS deaths incidences as of December 2009 places new reported HIV cases for Fiji at 43 and AIDS deaths at five; there are 354 reported cases to date.

The champions learnt details like apart from sexual intercourse, one can also get infected from (infected) blood transfusion; sexual assault like rape and/or molesting children; using needles for a drug habit; and/or deliberate infection by those carrying the virus.

Acknolwedging the possibility of accusatory reactions, there was a general realisation that while abstinence was the preferred line for most religious bodies, the reality is people are becoming sexually active at a much younger age, and that condom-use is a necessary message of precaution.The champions agree to complete at least six awareness events with their peers - this could be in the form of having a session with team mates; community outreach; and/or setting up an information booths at major sporting events.

"After learning about it in such detail and knowing the impact it can have on small populations like Fiji, I plan to organise more than six events," national futsal [five-a-side soccer] rep, Mira Sahib said. "It scares me to know that in such a small population, we already have 354 reported cases, that is quite a lot." Fiji Para-Olympic Committee's Iliesa Delana, a 2006 World Championship high jumper, plans to take advantage of existing awareness programmes within the diablility education sector to villages and settlements.

"Using sports people is an amazing vehicle for this message. For Fijians, no matter where you live, if there is a sports personality in the vicinity, people come whether they follow that particular sport or not; even if they are there first to see the person, if they return home with a few points about HIV, then that's something," Delana said. "For me, we have our own 14 schools (schools that cater for students with special needs) and with village visits, I wish there was more of us from paralympic."

Like her peers, basketball's Seini Dobui said she'd heard about HIV/AIDS but not the details she's now learnt. Dobui's interest is focussed on the process people living with HIV come through after being told they had the virus. "What I find amazing is how people living with HIV get through the initial shock, the stigma and discrimination they have to deal with and despite all that, some of them decide to go public about their status in the hope that people will change their attitudes and the way they live in terms of risky sexual behaviour," Dobui said.

"This is a very important undertaking we are commiting ourselves to, it is a responsibility to our families and communities." STOP HIV alumni present as facilitators and as supporters of the program warned the new batch of situations which would challenge their commitment; that organising and setting up events might be difficult enough to discourage them from continuing. They were encouraged however that they could help themselves by focussing on the responsibility of being a champion with a message.

Program alumni, baseball's Inoke Niubalavu said his experience with the program has affirmed for him that 'it is a program that is working, as an awareness vehicle".

The FASANOC STOP HIV (Fiji) Project is co-ordinated by Andrew Prasad.

* HIV - Human Immunodeficiency virus

* AIDS - Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome




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