Personal Stories
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Global STDs & HIV
Nkosi's Story
In one of the townships of Cape Town in South Africa, Nkosi is raising six younger siblings and cousins — both her mother and her aunt died of AIDS. Her brother lies on the mattress, home from school, sick with a cold.
Though the house is small and tin-roofed, it does have both electricity and running water, luxuries for many township dwellers. Because the government-built house was constructed and paid for before her mother died, Nkosi and her family can continue to live there. Other AIDS orphans, without the means to pay a mortgage, are evicted from their homes soon after their parents die. Nkosi and her family are also fortunate to be getting support from local aid organizations.
Nkosi shares her dream: to become a police officer, a good government job that will allow her to stay in her home and support her family.
However, she needs to learn to drive and to acquire other basic skills. Over the last couple of years, she has saved about $155 toward getting these credentials, but still has to save more. Her struggle to find enough money is all too familiar to AIDS orphans and their families.
The story Nkosi tells is far from unusual in South Africa, where by 2003, more than 1.1 million children had lost one or both parents to AIDS.
Youth Access to Reproductive Health Services
A teenage boy from Janigora in the East Singbhum district of Jharkhand, India, like many other boys in his community, was not interested in school and avoided classes. He teased girls in the village, lured them from the local market, and had unsafe sex with them, giving them sweets and tea in return.
All that changed when he and his friends attended the Planned Parenthood Federation of America program, Youth Access to Reproductive Health Services. Previously, he’d had no knowledge about reproductive health, and after attending the community program, he realized how risky his sexual behaviour had been. Now, he not only abstains from sexual activity, but he also respects girls and has convinced his friends to do the same. In fact, once he and his friends saved a mentally disabled girl from being raped and helped get the rapist arrested. He regularly takes part in a number of community activities and is grateful to have learned how to protect himself and others from sexually transmitted infections.
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