Last week, members of the senior class at St Mary's, a private high school for girls in Waverley, an affluent Johannesburg suburb, ran an HIV/AIDS awareness week that, for the first time, included onsite VCT provided by a Johannesburg-based NGO, the Aurum Institute. School nurse Colleen Davis said parents had to sign consent forms, and most welcomed the initiative.
What is it like to be tested for HIV at school? IRIN/PlusNews sat down with four senior students, all 18 years old, to talk to them about the experience.
Ashleigh Page
Photo: Laura Lopez Gonzalez/IRIN |
"It was my first time getting tested so I was terrified" |
"I've never really thought about being tested until this week. We don't really talk about it as much as we should. I think the problem is that we all have this feeling that we are sort of stuck in this private-school bubble and we can't be affected by AIDS. I think this week sort of brought it home and made us realize it's not like that."
Jessica Standish-White
"On the Monday morning I showed the entire school how to test, so I actually took an HIV test in front of the whole school, which was a fairly terrifying experience.
"My dad's really big on HIV so I had my first HIV test when, I think, I was 12. I went for another one when I was 15, when [my friend] Steph and I went on an exchange [programme] to Australia.
Photo: Laura Lopez Gonzalez/IRIN |
Lexi Stark, an 18 year-old high school student |
Lexi Stark
"At the beginning of the week, my parents weren't a hundred percent sure it was okay for a school to be doing [HIV tests], but when I came home last night and explained to them how everything worked and showed them the programme, explained to them the pre- and post-test counselling, they were so impressed. They thought every school should do something like this.
"My 15-year-old little sister got tested and she was terrified, but she said it was a brilliant thing. I think when you're sitting there, getting your test done, it brings it a lot closer to home.
"You start realizing how much it could actually affect you, even though you might not be infected, but you still know people who are, and you are still living with people who are."
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This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions