Association Advises Parents To Educate Children On HIV/AIDS

The Global Association for
War Against AIDS (GAWAA), has advised parents to educate their children and wards on HIV/AIDS to help  reduce the burden of the disease in Nigeria.
The Education Officer of GAWAA, Mrs Tinuke Lawal, gave the advice while speaking with newsmen in Lagos.
On the sidelines of a sensitisation programme for parents on Monday, against the backdrop of the National Education Sector HIV/AIDS Action Framework recommendation.
Lawal, who noted in Lagos, recently that the programme was organised in collaboration with the federal and state government agencies said.
It was aimed at teaching parents diverse ways of preventing children from contracting HIV/AIDS.
Lawal said, “Programmes like this should come up in all schools in Nigeria so as to bring this dreadful disease to minimal and especially because some people have continually denied the existence of the HIV/AIDs disease.
“Parents should educate their children in primary schools as this will help them to gain knowledge on how to avoid practices that may put them at risk of HIV/AIDS, because AIDS is real”.
“The children need to know about the disease now that they are little and for us to reach them enmasse, we have to go to their schools to educate them and also invite their parents to be part of it because most parents do not deem it fit to discuss such with their children”, she said. .
Contributing, Mrs Junaid Kudirat, a parent, commended the organisers of the programme, saying that it would not only educate the children but also the parents.
“This is the first HIV/AIDS enlightenment programme that I have ever attended and I have learnt a lot from it; I will put what I have learnt into practice.
“I think more of this initiative should come up, not only in schools but even at the market places.
“For instance, when a meat seller cuts himself, he should know that he is to sterilize the knife and make sure the blood does not touch the meat he is selling.
“This is because without knowledge he could pass the virus around,’’ she said.
A pupil, 12-year-old Miss Monsurat Akinwande, said that prior to the programme, she did not know anything about HIV/AIDS.