During the team’s SALT visits, we met a native doctor who believes in the existence of HIV/AIDS and also educated the team in is own little way, his interaction with the team was a little bit tough in the sense that this young man told us stories of many people that were sick and went to the hospital for tests, diagnosed HIV positive by the doctor’s result but the native doctor believes that it is a “family attack” which means that it is a sickness somebody did t them and not really HIV.
The man (Native Doctor) stated in his statement that the sick persons get healed, few weeks after taking his medications. The man seem to believe that HIV can only be contracted through sexual intercourse, because he sees multiple sex practices among married people and pre-marital sex practices amongst youths in the community as a way of life and concludes other ways of transmission suggested by the team e.g. unsterilized sharp objects, parent to child transmission, blood transfusion, accident victim etc. the team’s conversation with the man ended un-concluded because of his visitors, but the team made another SALT visit to the native doctor, where all is doubt about HIV/AIDS were clarified. He thanks the team for picking so much interest in him and the team in turn thank him for his time.
Story 2
The team met with some women and young women in one of the oil mills in the community, the interaction was a very interesting and educating one, because of the sincerity and openness of the women. During the sharing period, the team discover that one of the women who is married, is very sexually active and also practicing extra-marital affair and she asked the team of what to do in protecting her herself from contracting the virus. The team assessed her knowledge on condom use, because she has been having sex with other men and without protecting herself and she has never gone for an HIV counselling and testing. The preached faithfulness in marriage and she said, that a man cannot satisfied her sexual appetite. Then the team went on to talk about condom use, on hearing this she was so excited and had hand shakes with all the team-mates. The team advice her to go to any general hospital to know her HIV status. Another young woman who was present during the conversation expressed that condom use doesn’t allow sex to pleasurable; the team seized that opportunity to encourage the young women to abstain from sex until they are married and the married women to be faithful to their husband, since condom was not 100% safe and to help mitigate the rate of HIV infection in their community.
Story 3
The team met with Ini-ibehe, he was staying at Opobo in River State and later relocated to the village where he is staying with step mother who is also an orphaned.
He was seen playing musical instrument in the church with three of his friends, where a team-mate approached them and started a conversation with them and they were later invited to help the team move their belonging which they did gladly.
The team later invited the four friends who were also Salvationist to join the team, they all promise to think about it. Ini-ibehe was the first to make up his mind in joining the team. He was so pleased with all the team activities and said “What a wonderful team that is committed to helping other young people discover their potentials” and also said, he joined the team to have a better understanding of the programme.
He is a youth in the community and a very active one. He was sexually active, keeping of bad friends and also keeping of late night until his encounter with the frontier team. Some of the team-mate shared their personal experiences with him, which stimulated him to say, that he wants to have a change of heart, which includes, going to church every Sunday. He joined the team during the SALT Visits, Church facilitation and team devotion. He later persuaded Abasiofiok to come join the team, while Udo and Ofonime where still thinking of joining the team.
He use to very shy and scared to face a larger group, but during the team building, he played a major role in facilitating the other youth from the community, by sharing his experienced with them. He also led the team into the community during the SALT visits.
