LIFE AND HEALTH

By Tenzin Khepahk / Tibetoday

Delhi: In The message from His Holiness during the 46th founding anniversary of the Tibetan Children’s Village, Dharamshala last year has inspired a group of nursing students to get into action, resulting to unique initiative on aids awareness. The Tibetan Students’ Volunteers for Aids Awareness- a group consisting of final year students of nursing college of Jamia Hamdard University in Delhi has recently organized an awareness program about the killer disease among the Tibetan community here.  

In a series of awareness program at Majnu-ka-tilla and the Tibetan youth hostel here, the group briefed the audience with power point presentation on the killer disease and also distributed a booklet tilted “Understanding HIV/AIDS” followed by an interactive session.

One of the members from the group said, “though the number of aids patients in our community is less yet there are so many Tibetans especially the youth indulging in the high risk activities increasing the risk of contracting the disease. And the only way to prevent this is through education and information.” 

The group, first of its kind, in their effort to create an awareness about the disease will be distributing the booklets and the copies of CDs of their presentation to various health clinics, schools and if possible into Tibet.
“With lots of Chinese prostitute moving into Tibet, it increases the risk of contracting the disease among the Tibetans back home,” said another member.

Appreciating the group’s initiative, Gelek Passang, a volunteer from Rohini, who assisted the group said, “I am happy to be part of such a great work. This kind of community work should be encouraged and our youth should learn something from this wonderful work. I am sure the group members must have had a huge satisfaction.”  

Further speaking on benefits of such initiatives Gelek said, “Today our community especially the Tibetan youth is at huge risk. We get to hear of a case or two of AIDS from almost every Tibetan settlement these days. This is where these kinds of initiatives could play an important role by educating and informing people at the grassroot.”  

This self help group solely consisting of students is also committed to work with aids patients within our community. The group has so far worked closely with an AIDS patient from Majnu-ka-tilla. Kalsang Lhamo, a group member said, “we have taken her for counseling and other medical check up an aids patient needs to go through at different stages.”
 
While stressing on the role of society she added that we should positively accept the patients and take care of them rather than expelling them from one’s community. It is quite difficult for us to devote full time as we are student now, but we are committed to the cause. We hope that this initiative will inspire our youth to work towards the cause, she added.

The Tibetan Review in its January issue reports, “14 Tibetans in Dharamshala have Aids.” And it also mentions that AIDS is threatening to become a growing health issue within the exile Tibetan community.

Thanking various individuals and health centre, Majnu-ka-Tilla, Tenzin Chemi, another group member said, “This initiative wouldn’t have been possible without the help from the concerned individuals like Mr. Konchok of Dekhang cyber, Ngawa Sodey and many others.” It is only through such team work that we could make a difference in the community, she added.

Applauding their work Konchok la of Dekhang cyber, Majnu-ka-Tilla, who supported the group with the booklet, mentioned that these kinds of initiative should be encouraged and supported by the respective department of our government as well. He has managed to send 50 copies of the booklet into Tibet and is planning to send more with Chinese translation. Expressing his desire to be part of such initiatives in future as well. “It is only through working together that we can tackle this disease from spreading”, said Konchok.

When asked about the response from the audience Kalsang Lhamo said, “from the very beginning we weren’t expecting huge crowd since we were dealing with a kind of a sensitive issue, but very crucial and important one.” Infact we were targeting youth but it was quite unfortunate to have less number of youngsters actually attended for the awareness program held at the Majnu-ka-Tilla, she added. 

When asked about their future plans, the group members unanimously said, “We are committed to the cause, but at the moment it is quite difficult to speak on future plans as we are all students and have other commitments as well. But given a chance we shall definitely like to do something for the cause in future.”