AEGiS-11IAC: Helping illiterate women to learn about HIV/AIDS.

11th International AIDS Conference


Vancouver, British Columbia — July 7-12, 1996

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Helping illiterate women to learn about HIV/AIDS.

Int Conf AIDS 1996 Jul 7-12; 11:490 (abstract no. Pub.D.1335)
Gallegos-Vazquez N, Plasencia G, Marquez A, Ponce de Leon R, Marmolejo R; ORAIN, Mexico City, Mexico.

ISSUE: Psychological, biological, epidemiologic and social factors make women a vulnerable group to the HIV Infection. Taking in consideration that the house keeping wives are among those, the most vulnerable ones, because of the social role they play and due to the fact of lacking access to information, out to a high percent of them are illiterate by factor or functionality.

PROJECT: We decided to elaborate card boards with basic information about HIV/AIDS, made up with drawings targeted to illiterate women in urban or semiurban areas. First, we made 3 focus groups with targeted population that showed the needs to refer by the drawings of 9 different items, such as Sexuality, Communication with the partner, and use and negotiation of condom. Among other HIV information with this information the card board was developed with 10 drawings that can be used indistinctly (that means without a sequence) and guidelines to make its use available.

RESULTS: The card board has been used in several communities in different states of the country (Mexico), and it has been distributed among the NGO's that work with women, bringing out satisfactory results. An evaluation of this material, by face to face interviews with the targeted population were made before and after the work sessions; we obtained as a result that those women that did not know anything about HIV, afterwards they could feel at risk and learned how to protect themselves.

LESSONS LEARNED: The use of this material developed specifically for this target population -illiterate women- that can be used in their particular environment allows to improve the results since they can be identified with the problem showed in the contents and look for available solutions for them. Non formal education contributes to sensibilize those communities that have not had access to formal education and methods like this one, and may reply high benefits.

Keywords: AEGIS, Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, HIV Infections, Condoms, Educational Status, Focus Groups, Learning, Health Services Accessibility, Mexico, Human, Female, ICA11KWDaegis,acquiredimmunodeficiencysyndrome,hivinfections,condoms,educationalstatus,focusgroups,learning,healthservicesaccessibility,mexico,human,female,ica11

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PubD1335

Copyright © 1996 - International AIDS Society (IAS). Reproduction of this abstract (other than one copy for personal reference) must be cleared through the IAS.