Combating the spread of AIDS in Africa

In February, the AFT-Africa AIDS Campaign, an AIDS awareness and prevention program linking the AFT with teachers and unions in Africa, hosted 11 educators from Zimbabwe and Kenya. Their intensive two-week study tour included visits to Atlanta, Baltimore, New York City and Washington, D.C.

In New York, the African teachers and union leaders learned about the HIV education and training programs that the city's Department of Education provides. While in Atlanta, the group, along with AFT escorts, met with an official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The delegation capped off its visit by attending panel discussions and workshops at the AFL-CIO and AFT headquarters in Washington, D.C., and met with an assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of State.

Launched in 2001, the aim of the AFT-Africa AIDS Campaign and the "Teachers Helping Teachers Combat HIV/AIDS in Africa" exchange program is to arm educators in sub-Saharan Africa with the tools and information they need to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS in their countries. "Teachers have been starved for information on the pandemic," says AFT health and safety coordinator Darryl Alexander. "Teachers want to know more than just the basics, such as how the disease is transmitted and what can be done to protect oneself from the disease."

Nine of the visiting African teachers were members of the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT), and two were representatives of the Zimbabwe Teachers Association. "The key to preventing and stopping AIDS from spreading is through education," said one member of KNUT. "Our strategy is to reach the teachers because they have the greatest impact of all people in the community. Teachers will bring the information to the children and in doing so, the information can be passed to future generations."

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