For Africa's Deaf and Blind, AIDS Is an Unknown Language
On my last trip to India, as I dodged traffic and attempted to navigate the cracked and uneven sidewalks of Calcutta, it occurred to me how impossible it would be for a blind person or someone confined to a wheelchair to perform even basic chores like shopping for food or clothes. In Canada we're used to seeing disabled people out and about, but in India I don't recall ever seeing them outside, except as beggars.
Now consider the difficulty of educating oneself about AIDS or taking an AIDS test. In countries where AIDS is a widespread, it can be a matter of life or death. This article describes the difficulties of AIDS education for the disabled and the progress made in Kenya and other African nations towards solving it.
There are signs of slow progress. Susan Mwikali, 23, appeared recently in a commercial aimed at disabled people in which she urged them to follow her lead and use condoms. Ms. Mwikali, the first runner-up in a beauty pageant organized last year for disabled Kenyan women, laughed heartily at the notion that disabled people do not have sex.Posted by alokem at March 30, 2004 06:04 PM