ALO Partnerships Respond to the Crisis of HIV/AIDS and Human Capacity Development
With an estimated 24.8 million dead worldwide and five million new infections diagnosed in 2001 alone, the HIV/AIDS pandemic is draining national resources and undermining development achievements of the past 50 years for many countries throughout the entire world. Understandably, with more than 95 percent of the HIV-infected population found in developing countries, addressing the challenges posed by the HIV/AIDS pandemic has become a top development priority.
Higher education institutions and partnerships clearly have a critical role to play in responding to the human capacity shortages related to HIV/AIDS in developing countries. However, this role is complicated by the fact that students and educational staff at all levels are experiencing or will be experiencing similar levels of illness and death as the general populations as a whole.Even as escalating healthcare costs and lower national productivity are threatening government investment in education, the absenteeism, sickness, and death associated with HIV/AIDS are threatening to erode the human resources base of educational systems and higher education institutions. Some ALO partnership projects, especially in Africa, are also feeling the effects of this critical situation. The partnership between Florida State University and Potchefstroom University, which is working on raising the percentage of disadvantaged students that qualify for university admission in South Africa, reports that "the HIV infection rates are so high in South Africa, it can't help but have an indirect impact" on their work.
A growing number of partnerships, cognizant of the effect HIV/AIDS has on higher education institutions in developing countries and in turn, on educating and training the next generation of leaders, have responded to the crisis by integrating components of HIV/AIDS education into their work, enhancing the original focus of their projects.
Recognizing the consequences of HIV/AIDS in Botswana and Malawi, the partners at Washington State University, the University of Botswana, and Botswana College of Agriculture recently decided to incorporate HIV/AIDS into key components of their environmental science partnership, including their educational materials and student support services. For instance, the partnership integrated HIV/AIDS related materials into a broad range of courses, such as ethnobotany, education, the health sciences, and the environmental sciences in order to raise awareness while providing content useful in understanding, preventing, and/or responding to the issues of HIV/AIDS. The partnership is also working to identify natural products that are perceived to be useful in preventing or treating HIV/AIDS in the course of natural products market research. Southern New Hampshire University and the Open University of Tanzania, a partnership which is building a graduate level, degree-based program in community development, has added an HIV/AIDS-focused course to the program entitled "Gender, Equality, and Family Health." Pennsylvania State University and the University of Durban-Westville (UDW), a partnership whose overall goal is to help UDW secure more students from underprivileged backgrounds to study math and science, works with students from the most vulnerable age group, 15-29. As the province in which they are working, Kwazulu Natal, has the highest rate of HIV/AIDS in South Africa, they have added an HIV/AIDS education project as an integral component of their program.
Middle Tennessee State University is also working with the University of Durban-Westville to apply sustainable and participatory environmental management principles in KwaZulu Natal by addressing water sanitation and hygiene. Upon report by local community and social workers that the infection rate was 1:3 among the residents, HIV/AIDS was soon added to the program. Community leaders and peer educators attended a workshop on water sanitation, hygiene and HIV/AIDS workshop/training at UDW. The community leaders were provided with health educator training during the first week through low literacy materials on water sanitation, hygiene, and HIV/AIDS prevention translated into the Zulu language; manuals with photos taken by community residents to show health practices (good and bad) in their community; glo-germ kits to demonstrate proper handwashing techniques; and condom demonstrations for both men and women.
ALO also now funds a variety of partnerships which have as their primary focus issues related directly to HIV/AIDS.
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| Drs. Mabel Imbuga (AWSE), Ebby Chagala (AWSE), Olenge (National AIDS Council of Kenya, and Alan Bornbusch (AAAS) during a break in the workshop, "Women in Higher Education and Science: African Universities Responding to HIV/AIDS." |
In forming a two-year partnership on "Women in Higher Education and Science: African Universities Responding to HIV/AIDS," the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Africa Program has been working to catalyze activities by East African universities in response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
This collaboration among U.S. and African partners, including International Women in Science and Engineering (IWISE), Jomo Kenyatta University in Kenya, the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), African Women in Science and Engineering (AWSE), and several other East African Universities, is tackling HIV/AIDS by developing campus and community-based programs for women educators.
At a workshop launching the AAAS partnership on December 3-5, 2001, in Nairobi, Kenya, some 55 participants gathered to discuss the impact of the HIV/AIDS crisis in East Africa, with special reference to universities, and to review what responses have been undertaken by universities in the region.
Most participating institutions reported that they had been hit hard by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Estimates of percentage of infected staff ranged from 12 percent to over 50 percent. Many institutions reported an average death rate of about two staff members per month. In all, they found that statistics were more easily available for infection and death rates for staff than they were for students, since staff members tend to remain attached to the university after the onset of the illness whereas students tend to disappear. In each case, the numbers of students infected and dying were unknown. (read the full report and presentations at http://www.aaas.org/international/ssa/hiv/index.shtml.)
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| Workshop participants from East African universities, Kenyan government agencies, AAAS, AAC&U, IWISE, and AWSE at the main entrance of the International Center for Research in Agroforestry, where the workshop was held. |
The AAAS workshop highlights a major challenge facing development and the educational sector in the regions hardest hit by HIV/AIDS-higher education institutions and partnerships are vulnerable to the impact of AIDS in ways that are oftentimes not easy to quantify or measure. Marilyn Pugh, director of the Prince George's Community College partnership with Vista University in South Africa, commented that "HIV/AIDS may have affected partnership activities to the extent that students may not have been able to complete the courses they began or to continue in their university studies. … [W]e do not know who these individuals are and how many they might number."
Another ALO partnership with an HIV/AIDS focus is between Maricopa Community College District and the Universidad Veracruzana (UV) in Mexico. They have been working for the past two years to strengthen public health awareness of both HIV/AIDS and TB and to promote the competitiveness and environmental protection practices of small businesses. Medical faculty from UV visited the Arizona AIDS project, Native American communities and health care agencies to observe first-hand how their public education programs were managed. As a result, UV has developed material to use for HIV/AIDS education, both with their own students and in the community at large. The results so far have been remarkable.
"65,000 students and more than 30 communities have been impacted," said project director Bertha Landrum of Maricopa. "Every student is required to go through a health screening, and the materials are passed out to them at that time. They have also developed overhead and PowerPoint presentations on HIV/AIDS prevention to take to the community. They are very well-illustrated and pictorial so that people with limited literacy can understand."
The partnership is supported in their efforts by a "student brigade," a one-year service program in which over 2,000 UV students have participated where they assist with community service projects such as housing, nutrition, childcare and health education. This program is only one innovation that has astounded Landrum, who has "been really impressed with the creativity of the faculty. They have been almost limitless in creative ways to present HIV/AIDS prevention information."
Other regions in the world face severe or rapidly growing HIV/AIDS epidemic-Eastern Europe and Central Asia is the region with the fastest growing rate of infection in the world. The XIV International AIDS Conference will discuss this spread and many other issues when it convenes in Barcelona from July 7 through 12, 2002. USAID will sponsor several sessions, including Beyond Public Health: New Approaches In HIV/AIDS Programming, which will address how HIV/AIDS effects broader development goals. For more information on the conference, see http://www.aids2002.com. For more information on USAID programs in HIV/AIDS, see http://www.usaid.gov/pop_health/aids/index.html
ALO Partnerships in HIV/AIDS
KENYA
American Association for the Advancement of Science/Jomo Kenyatta
University of Agriculture and Technology (2001): To develop campus
and community-based programs for women educators on civic engagement
to address the HIV/AIDS pandemic. http://www.aaas.org/international/ssa/hiv/summary.shtml.
Indiana University/Moi University (2001): To build capacity to
more effectively manage HIV/AIDS by improving medical school education,
health care delivery, and research. http://medicine.iupui.edu/kenya/program.html
MOZAMBIQUE
West Virginia University/Catholic University of Mozambique (CUM)
(2001): To develop public health programs in maternal and child
health and HIV/AIDS education and a rural health curriculum at the new
CUM Faculty of Medicine.
MEXICO
Maricopa Community College District/Universidad Veracruzana (2000):
To strengthen public health education in HIV/AIDS and TB and promote
the competitiveness and environmental protection practices of businesses.
University of California, San Diego/Universidad Autonoma de Baja
California (2001): To increase the number of health care practitioners,
community health workers, and medical students trained in binational
HIV/AIDS and TB issues.
PERU
Johns Hopkins University/Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia (2001):
To build capacity in applied quantitative methods for use in HIV/AIDS
prevention and control strategies.