WATCH: World Aids Day event reaches out to the youth
An Aids Day event was hosted at the Kwa-Thema Skills School.
Kwa-Thema – The learner support agents (LSA) under the Gauteng Department of Education (GDE) held a World Aids Day and 16 Days Of Activism against Gender-Based Violence event at Kwa-Thema Skills School on Wednesday.
The Gauteng East district’s Life Skills HIV/Aids coordinator, Beverly Dumisile Kopa, said: “We celebrated this event on the 30th instead of December 1 because it is exam time.
“We still need to send a message to our learners. As they will celebrate the festive season, they must know about the risky behaviours they will encounter.”
There were seven schools, both primary and secondary, invited to the event and all were within walking distance.
“The purpose of the day is to share the theme which is to re-engage, refocus and redirect. We started commemorating World Aids Day in 1988. We anticipated that by this year there would be fewer infections.
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“However, infections are rising mostly among the youth. Therefore, we need to go back to the drawing board to check what we are not doing, hence the theme reengage.
“There is a sector that we are not engaging with, which is the youth. Mostly we have such programmes in hotels and stadiums, so adults attend but they leave the youth at home,” said Kopa.
A guest from the Community Media Trust, Boikanyo Reuben Phama, said, “We have different programmes in the community and institutions.
“One of them speaks on men’s issues, as we have men who face gender-based violence. With men, the abuse becomes worse, hence you will find men committing suicide.”
There were performances by learners from different schools including a play and a gumboot dance.
