Features: Magazine | Literary Review | Life | Metro Plus | Open Page | Education Plus | Book Review | Business | SciTech | Entertainment | Young World | Property Plus | Quest | Folio |

Keep off AIDS - and keep on laughing

AIDS is a social and economic issue that has far-reaching consequences

CRUSADER Yamuna Pathak. --- PHOTO: C.V. SUBRAHMANYAM

It was noon, the scheduled time for the Hyderbad-based Stree Seva Samiti under the Youth Employment Summit India Network (AP) to start its awareness training session on HIV/AIDS for students of the Andhra University College of Arts and Commerce. More than half of the seats at the venue, AU Ambedkar Assembly Hall, were vacant.

A lone young woman was sitting restlessly on one of the chairs on the dais. The young men and women began moving impatiently in their chairs. The look on their faces appeared as though they were made scapegoats to listen to a lecture on AIDS.

Their faces brightened up as the young woman on stage picked up the mike, and said: "I know you have come with a particular mindset. I am also a student and I can understand your feelings. The only difference is that you are all from AU and I am from Osmania University. But youth everywhere are the same. You are free to crack jokes and laugh. It's good for health, but if you take the message seriously, you can keep laughing throughout your life".

Her words seemed to match the youth's wavelength and they responded to her queries. Some of them sent the audience into peals of laughter with their witty answers. When she asked as to why they preferred to sit in the chairs at the back when all the front rows were empty, one naughty lad who was sitting in the middle replied: "So that they can walk out in the middle of the meeting."

The young woman who caught the imagination of students was Yamuna Pathak, the AP Coordinator of the Youth Employment Summit India Network and a student of Social Work in OU.

Once the job of striking a rapport with the youth was completed, she continued: "India is the only country in the world, where 40 per cent of the population is youth in the 18-35 age group. No other country has such a large `wealth of youth'. But, unfortunately, youth account for the maximum number of AIDS cases in India."

When a lad suggested that she could have arranged snacks for the participants, she replied: "I am trying to save the `youth wealth' of our country. I am also a student like you and I have used my pocket money to organise this programme. I have not taken a single paisa from the Government for this purpose," she said amidst applause.

Ms. Pathak drove home the point how normal friendships between members of the opposite sex result in intimacy and quite often lead to pre-marital sex. A majority of the cases of HIV/AIDS are due to pre-marital sex. She underlined the importance of abstaining from sex before marriage, being faithful to one's partner and using a condom.

In AP, there is great awareness on HIV and AIDS. But, not many are aware of the consequences of AIDS and the trauma such patients undergo on being ostracised by society.

Expressing concern at the present forms of ragging by seniors under the garb of making juniors overcome their shyness, she said: "I gave pamphlets on AIDS awareness to each of the participant and asked them to make copies of it and distribute it to their juniors to make them aware of the consequences. I wanted them to set a trend for others to follow.

AIDS is not a health issue. It is a socio-economic issue which concerns not only the family, but also society, the nation and the world at large."

Sharing other's sorrows

She had the courage to ask her would-be husband for the Elisa Test (HIV screening) report. "What's there to feel embarrassed about it? I had given the certificate myself and I wanted him to reciprocate. It all depends on the way you put things across. Today, he educates youth on safe sex and the danger of AIDS. I even talk with my in-laws on the subject," says Ms. Pathak.

The seeds of social service were sown in Yamuna right in her childhood. "When I was a studying at the Keyes Higher Secondary School in Secunderabad, I was perturbed by elderly persons and kids begging for food outside our school compound. I used to empty the contents of my tiffin box into their bowl and used to go without food on several occasions.

It gave me immense satisfaction to see them have their fill. "When I was in Std. VIII, I used to visit orphanages and old age homes and contributed to raising donations for organisations like Sweekar Upkaar and HelpAge India. When I was 15 years old, I volunteered to work for a drug de-addiction centre. The management was shocked to see a little girl seeking to work at the de-addiction centre and initially refused to allow me but when I persisted, they agreed to allow me to work without salary and under their supervision. I used to talk to the alcoholics and drug addicts, some of whom were youth in their early 20s, and came to know the situations that led to it. I counselled them for about one-and-a-half months."

As a student of B.A. (psychology) at St. Francis in Begumpet, she enrolled herself in the Youth Red Cross Society. In 2002, she was one of the two girls from India who were selected to represent the country in the International Youth Conference on Humanitarian Law. She spoke on the topic "How to counter terrorism?"

Impressed by presentation, the Red Cross Society of Australia invited her for a two-week training programme on `humanitarian law' in Down Under. In the Youth Employment Summit organised by the Government of AP, in collaboration with the Boston Education Development Centre, in Hyderabad in 2003, she was nominated as the first coordinator in India for the sustenance of youth employment opportunities.

At that summit, she presented a paper on HIV/AIDS, which won appreciation of the foreign delegates. She received an offer to conduct awareness training programmes on HIV/AIDS in Georgia. She conducted the training programmes for the students of the University of Gori in Georgia in February 2004.

Her objective? I have a dream of setting up a home to accommodate orphans and senior citizens. It is only a dream but one should dare to dream to achieve their goal in life.

B. MADHU GOPAL

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail