EIL Intercultural Learning

Just last week, Ciara and I began a HIV & AIDS Certificate. AIDS West (Galway) are facilitating it and a team from the Terrence Higgins Trust are delivering it. It is a three month course and will give me my very first qualification in the area. Like the HIV & AIDS training the GAP participants received from Dtalk last June before we went to Africa, I loved every second of it, I NEVER talk in class but you could not shut me up!!  

It was incredible to observe from the beginning of the course how little some people knew about HIV & AIDS and how their attitudes and opinions changed even after learning a few basic facts about HIV in the first session. It also increased their understanding of the power that the stigma has on 'positive' people. So, in my usual naive way, I recommend that everyone learn a little about HIV, the difference that it would make because the stigma is the biggest issue surrounding HIV & AIDS could be instrumental in tackling the pandemic.

I met some 'positive' people last week, and I learned of the stigma and discrimination that they experience in the developed world, the developing world has a looooooooooooooooooong way to go!