Friday, 21 June 2013

Attitudes of Local Youth Toward HIV/AIDS

Youth of Salia sahi the biggest slum of Bhubaneswar, encompasses an extremely diverse group of individuals as with any habitation, it is essential for this to be taken into consideration when attempting to portray the attitudes and awareness of this group towards HIV/AIDS. Falling under the umbrella category of youth of Salia sahi are commercial sex workers (CSW), intravenous drug users (IDU), runaway children, child laborers and students. It could be said that a wider range of opinions and attitudes regarding HIV/AIDS exist between these aforementioned groups, than would be apparent between cross-cultural subsets of the respective categories. Some of the most contrasting viewpoints are evident across different socioeconomic sections of society. Enormous differences in knowledge, perceived knowledge and acceptance of HIV/AIDS prevention measure exist between urban and rural youth. Due to my location (being predominantly situated in New Delhi), the majority of my direct exposure to Indian youth was with urban youth. Due to language barriers, my interaction with urban youth of lower socioeconomic status was low, and indirect (i.e. communication facilitated by third party). As with youth around the world, numerous misconceptions exist amongst youth in India.  Notion that HIV/AIDS is curable and not preventable exists, despite existence of billboards dispelling such myths; illiteracy a fundamental impediment too many awareness initiatives.  Much fear and concern surrounding disease resulting from tone of earlier mass awareness campaigns supported by government

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