Developing tools to address stigma faced by children

06 March 2007

In February 2007, trainers from the regional stigma training project and the Alliance’s technical advisor: children travelled to rural Tanzania to work with groups of children to understand the types of stigma that they face. The trip also informed the development of a new module on children for the anti-stigma toolkit Understanding and challenging HIV stigma: Toolkit for action, which will contain exercises for children and for adults.

Working with the children was amazing and a real reminder of how much they have been affected by HIV. Most of the children were orphaned and living with grandparents, having moved around different family members, often staying with them until they die.

One of the most powerful exercises during the workshops involved the children creating pictures of their families using silhouette figures and then telling their stories. For many this was the first time they had spoken about the losses they have been through and the sense of relief in sharing their burdens was evident.

The children also debated topics like ‘should children living with HIV be told?’ The message from all the groups of children, many of whom were living with the virus, was that children should know if they are living with HIV and should be told what antiretrovirals are for. (Parents, carers and health workers often worry about telling children in order to protect them from stigma.)

The children also had powerful messages for adults on stigma and support for orphans and their families. Using a big group drawing to capture these messages, the children were able to express their needs and wishes for a better future.

Messages for adults from the children

"The government should support orphans and deal with the transport problem. Some of us live very far from school. And we need more text books."

"I tried to think of all the things to help us have a better life. A house connected to electricity, close to school, clinic, police station, NGOs. Good roads with transport…"

"Adults should be close to children living with HIV and comfort them, because children are the future of the nation."

"What happens if I have HIV – what will you do to me? Will you stigmatise me? Please don’t stigmatise us."

"I would like old men and people who cannot work, who cannot lift heavy loads, or fetch firewood or look for cattle, to be helped like we – the children – are being helped."

"If a child has HIV, they should be told, so they can be taken to hospital if they get sick, otherwise they can even die."

New version of anti-stigma toolkit soon to be available

In the coming months a new version of the anti-stigma toolkit Understanding and challenging HIV stigma: Toolkit for action will be launched by the Alliance.

The toolkit is a trainers’ manual, full of exercises and ideas for working with communities around stigma. It is the core tool used by Alliance’s Regional Stigma Training Project (based in the Zambia Country Office) when training HIV trainers and has been used in over 15 African countries.

The toolkit was developed out of a research study on stigma carried out by the International Center for Research on Women in Zambia, Tanzania and Ethiopia in 2003. One of the reasons for its success is that it has been developed with communities, NGOs, networks of people living with HIV through tool development workshops. The topics that it covers and the problems that it sets out to address are those that have been identified by the people who know the effects and consequences of stigma.

The new toolkit contains updated versions of the original version’s core modules, plus five new modules:

  • stigma and treatment
  • stigma and home-based care
  • stigma and men who have sex with men
  • stigma and children
  • stigma and young people.

The modules on stigma and children and young people have been developed in partnership with PACT Tanzania.