Friday, June 13, 2008

Taking IRMA and AIDS Advocacy to the Grassroots in Lagos


"The joy we derive is the fact
that we are touching lives
by giving life changing information to the
less privileged people in the society."


by Kadiri Audu
[pictured front center with IRMA members at the M2008 conference]

IRMA-Lagos has been doing a lot recently. On the 29 of May, Nigeria's Democracy Day, we partnered with a group of young barbers, Otumara Concerned Barbers (OCB), and Lagos Mainland Youth Forum to organise an HIV/AIDS awareness creation. The theme was TAKING HIV/AIDS INFORMATION TO THE GRASSROOTS.

Topics covered included - basic facts about HIV/AIDS, facts and current issues on microbicides and rectal microbicides, proper condom usage and stigmatization. Facilitators were drawn from the National Youth Network on HIV/AIDS, IRMA-Lagos, Lagos State AIDS Control Agency, and Other experts in the field of HIV/AIDS.

Also in attendance were the community head of Otumara village in Mainland LGA, the venue of the event, the youth reps from Mainland LGA and other invited dignitaries. It was an educative and interactive programme as many were satisfied with the information they got, this was evident from the various questions that were asked and satisfactory answers they received.

We are still working on the video editing, we will send the videos and pictures as soon as they are ready. The programme was a self-sponsored programme. Getting funding for such projects is really a challenge we are facing, we would have sent the videos and pictures if not for financial constraint. But we are not allowing that to affect our advocacy work because we have committed members who are always ready to contribute their money and time to the work we are doing, most of them don't work while the few of us that have a meager paying job still do our best to keep the work going.

The joy we derive is the fact that we are touching lives by giving life changing information to the less privileged people in the society, like the venue of our last event, it is a slum where people do not have access to adequate information, and you will agree with me that if one is not informed that fellow is deformed and can not perform, that is "IF YOU ARE NOT INFORMED YOU ARE DEFORMED AND YOU CAN NOT PERFORM" This was one of the messages on that day.

I will keep you informed of our activities as we go on.

Yours in service,

Kadiri Audu
IRMA-Lagos

Read more from Kadiri here.
Read his bio here, in IRMA's "Meet a Friendly Microbicide Advocate" section of our website.

3 comments:

raymond said...

Hello,
Whatz a nice advocate work you people are doing in Lagos keep it up.

Great work !!!!!!!!!!!

Sholotan

Anonymous said...

Kadiri, I am so proud of the work you are doing, and hope to get IRMA to a place in which we can provide more support to efforts like yours! Keep up the amazing job you are doing...

Marc-André LeBlanc said...

It is great to hear such news of wonderful work being done by advocates all over the world. Inspires all of us to keep going!

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...