Youth and Hiv/Aids
Victoria Seiketso Sethibe | Thursday December 3, 2015 15:41
While some members of the community could be well empowered to guard against HIV infections or reinfections, it is only fit to reflect on some of the things that young people need to guard against to prevent new infections.
Below is a realistic story that young people can learn from, on how HIV can spread:
Bonolo* is a third year university student who has a tendency of following what others are doing, just so that she can easily gain acceptance among her peers.
Bonolo* has always followed group mentality, right from her primary school days to “fit in” with the rest of her play mates.
Now at the age of 22 years, Bonolo*, is keeping some sexual relationships that she knows are not adding value to her stay in the university, just to get enough funding to buy the type of cellphones and clothes that will earn her some acceptance from her fellow classmates.
As a result of this lifestyle she is now secretly living with HIV/AIDS.
Her decision to keep her status a secret is due to the fact that she fears losing the very partners who are funding her lifestyle. Bonolo* does not have much control over the safety of her sexual life because she depends entirely on her partners to keep up appearances.
*Not her real name The story above shows that sometimes lack of self-acceptance and lack of the courage to resist peer pressure can promote vulnerability to new HIV infections.
What can make a young person
bow easily to peer pressure?
People usually bow to peer pressure because they think there is something wrong with being different and that makes them see their uniqueness as a “baggage” to deal with.
Having unnecessary “baggage” or self-imposed pressure can unnecessarily make you, as a young person feel:
l Hurt and ashamed
l Afraid of being laughed or shouted at
l That there is nothing you can do about the “baggage”
l That you should act against your will
l That you have to hide behind a mask pretending to be someone else
How then can a young person
resist peer pressure?
It is important for a young person to know that as much as they think they have “baggage” to deal with, so does everyone else around them, irrespective of age or background.
That being the case, focusing too much attention on how others view you creates unnecessary “baggage” and is actually not worth your time after all.
As a young person you need to note that:
There is something special about being different, even if you think your uniqueness is not desirable, it could be something as seemingly major to you as the shape of your legs or something. Once you learn to accept your uniqueness and be happy with it, you can make it work for you.
There are a number of people out there who have been through a lot of adversities in life and are using those adversities to reach out to their communities to empower them against the same adversities such as domestic violence and rape. By doing so, they learn to overcome their own challenges.
As a young person you need to gather a lot of courage to decide to do what suits you and be true to yourself, especially when it comes to making decisions about sexual relationships.
Wrong choice of sexual relationships can lead to physical abuse such as rape, verbal abuse and consequently loss of self-esteem.
Finally, as a young person you need to learn to accept others for who they are and respect their rights as much as you would like them to respect your rights.