Students study in Africa; offer education on AIDS

By Lizzie Ehrle

Daily Staff Reporter

University students took action to help fight against the HIV and AIDS crisis in South Africa through a new summer study-abroad program.

Nesha Haniff, professor in the Center for Afro-American and African Studies and the Women's Studies department, organized a trip in which 14 students traveled to South Africa to educate people about HIV and AIDS.

Students worked with local elementary school teachers, traditional healers and members of a South African gay and lesbian alliance to educate them about HIV, how it is transmitted, how it can be prevented and what can be done for people with HIV or AIDS.

"The objective was to teach them in a way that they could teach young South Africans," said recent University graduate Leseliey Welch during lecture on the program at the Center for Afro-American and African Studies.

"I learned so much from them about what their communities are like and what their lives are like," she said.

Welch said after they trained the teachers, University students watched teachers put the information into action in their classrooms.

One teacher introduced condoms to her first-grade students to prevent the students from mistaking them as a balloon they could play with.

The different culture did sometimes pose problems with language barriers, Welch said.

One traditional healer, Welch said, could not speak English.

"One of the things that made it easier for her was my voice," Welch said.

"She liked my voice and it made her more comfortable," she said.

The program, titled "The Pedagogy of Action: The Crisis of HIV and AIDS in South Africa," involved a six week tour of three African cities - Capetown, Johannesburg and Durban.

The students worked with people living in the local townships and received six academic credits for their work.

In the six weeks Michigan students spent in Africa, the information they spread was estimated to reach about 2,000 people, Haniff said.

The education was centered around a module, developed by Haniff, that is "structured to teach non-literate people about HIV and HIV prevention," she said.

Additional undergraduate students, who participated in the program, will discuss their experiences in similar Brown Bag discussions on Nov. 16 and 30.

The program will not be held in 2001, but may be offered again in summers to come.