DIMAPUR — Community Awareness and Development (CAD) Foundation conducted a primary prevention on HIV/AIDS, substance abuse, stigma and discrimination at Pinnacle Skills DDU-GKY Institute, Dimapur, on August 5. The programme was jointly organised with Project Sunshine–II PATH/CDC and Link Worker Scheme (LWS) NACO/ NSACS.
An update from CAD Foundation stated that a brief introduction on the organisation and project activity was delivered by Dipika, field mobiliser of adolescent and youth friendly centre, Dimapur, while Reni Ovung, counsellor, spoke on HIV/AIDS and its mode of transmission through unscreened blood transfusion, sharing contaminated needle syringes, infected parents to the child.
She also mentioned that People Living with HIV (PLHIV) can live a normal life by taking antiretroviral therapy (ART) with proper adherence to treatment.
In the second session, Lunglubuile Irangbe, project coordinator of CADF-PATH, spoke on drug abuse and the current rising trend among the adolescent, which initially starts with weeds (ganja), and alcohol and ends up with hard drugs such as sunflower. She alerted the participants to stay away from curiousness or experimenting with any chemical substance.
[bsa_pro_ad_space id=1]The third session on stigma and discrimination was taken up by Lovika Kinnimy, DRP-LWS Project, wherein she talked about the HIV/AIDS Prevention Act 2017, an act of the Parliament of India for controlling and preventing HIV/AIDS and securing the rights of individuals diagnosed with HIV.
She presented some key highlights of the Act, which are to stop stigma and discrimination revolving around HIV or AIDS, punish people involved in discriminating against PLHIV and provide equal rights and opportunities to the infected people.
In conclusion, she encouraged the participants to volunteer for testing to know their own status and avail services provided free of cost.
The vote of thanks was delivered by Mhabemo Ovung, centre manager of Pinnacle Skills, Dimapur.
It was followed with free HIV testing conducted by the mobile integrated counselling and testing centre under DAPCU, Dimapur. It stated that a total of 194 students volunteered for testing.