World AIDS Day
Assembly
Introduction
HIV continues to have a devastating impact around the globe. An estimated 25
million people have already died, with an estimated 33 million more living with
the virus.
In 1998, the 1st December was identified as World AIDS Day, and it has been
marked every year since. It is a day for people to think about the health, social
and personal costs of a global epidemic and to show awareness of, and support
for, the individuals and communities who are affected by HIV, and also the
organisations who are working to reduce infection, and provide care and
treatment.
Despite all the campaigns there have been since the 1980s, it appears that some
younger people think that HIV is no longer a problem. They assume that it does
not affect them or that somehow the problem has gone away.
This assembly is designed to promote World AIDS Day and to remind young
people of the impact of HIV and the continuing need to raise awareness to
prevent infection, reduce transmission, and provide care and treatment in the UK
and overseas.
Preparation
Many schools encourage the active participation of students in delivering some
or all of their assemblies. This plan assumes that a teacher will introduce the
assembly, and then hand over to students to read the Assembly Script.
If you do choose to involve students, you will need to find two or three
volunteers with good reading voices. Make sure they have time to practise. If
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you are going to use microphones, then give your readers a run-through with
them or they could be surprised or unnerved by the sound of their own
amplified voices.
If you want to attempt Version 2 of Spreading then Virus (see below) you’ll need
to talk to your friendly Science Department and ask if they’ll let you have the
necessary equipment for a starch test!
If you have World AIDS Day red ribbons on sale in your school, you could have
them available at the end of the assembly. Depending on the age of your
students, you might also want to advertise local sexual health services, or
provide literature that individuals can take if they want to. Your Head of PSHE
will probably have suitable flyers and pamphlets, or know where to get them.
IMPORTANT: Bear in mind that in a large school community there may well be
staff or students who have HIV or who know someone who has. Have a word
with the Head of Year or the Form Tutors beforehand and give any relevant
individuals the opportunity to be excused from the assembly. Of course, they
may wish to be involved in the delivery of the assembly.
Further information and resources are available from:
AVERT:
http://www.avert.org/world-aids-day.htm
The Terrence Higgins Trust:
http://www.tht.org.uk/howyoucanhelpus/worldaidsday/
The NHS:
http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/HIV/Pages/Introduction.aspx
...And for further advice about Sex and Relationships Education, go to the Sex
Education Forum at the National Children’s Bureau:
http://www.ncb.org.uk/sef
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Instructions
Begin by announcing that the 1st of December is World AIDS Day.
Ask your audience if they know what AIDS stands for – and take some answers
(it stands for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) And do they know what HIV
stands for? Again take some answers (it stands for Human Immunodeficiency
Virus).
Explain (if a student hasn’t already) that AIDS is a condition that people can
develop if they catch a virus called HIV.
Now ask if anyone knows how HIV is spread – and once more, take some
answers e.g. sexual intercourse, drug-users sharing needles, blood transfusion
with infected blood, mother to child.
Make it clear that you cannot catch HIV from shaking hands, toilet seats or being
sneezed on.
But, if people get involved in risky behaviour, such as unprotected sex, the virus
can spread very easily.
Spreading the Virus – Version 1
Ask for a couple of volunteers to come up to the front to help you. Given the
subject matter, you might want to choose a couple of students beforehand and let
them know what you’re planning.
Introduce the couple as “Sam” and “Chris”, and get them to give the audience a
wave. Explain that Sam and Chris could be male, female, gay, straight or
bisexual. Whatever – the point is that they are in a relationship and make the
mistake of having unprotected sex.
Now get “Sam” and “Chris” to shake hands. You might want to explain at this
point that shaking hands is not how people actually have sex. You don’t want to
worry anyone. But for the purposes of the assembly, shaking hands symbolises a
sexual relationship.
But Sam and Chris break up, and after a while, they both start new relationships.
Get Sam and Chris to shake hands with two other students in the front row.
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Those people should then choose someone else nearby to shake hands with, and
then those people should shake hands with new people and so on. Each person
can have a maximum of three handshakes with the people around them. People
can politely decline to shake hands if they don’t want to.
Watch the handshakes work their way around the room, and then get everyone
calmed down.
Ask if anyone exercised their right to refuse a handshake, and get them to raise
their hands or stand up. Congratulate those people, and remind everyone that it
always their right to say “no” to something they don’t want to do.
Now reveal that you have Sam’s test results and, very sadly, he has HIV. So
anyone who had a sexual relationship (shook hands) with Sam could have HIV
too. And anyone who shook hands with the people who shook hands with Sam,
and anyone who shook hands with anyone who shook hands with anyone who
shook hands with Sam.
Ask everyone who shook hands with anyone else to raise their hands or stand.
If those handshakes were unprotected sex (!) it is likely that these people all have
HIV and may develop AIDS. It’s worth reiterating the point that you cannot
really catch HIV by shaking someone’s hand!
Spreading the Virus – Version 2
If you are delivering this assembly to a smaller group (such as, to your form),
you could illustrate the spread of the virus in a fun way with a few props and
some preparation. But you will need some help from your friendly Science
Department. Ask them nicely for some starch solution, some iodine and a pipette
– in other words, the resources they would use for a starch test in a Science
lesson.
Give every student half a plastic cup of water, apart from one which contains
starch solution. It is clear enough that they shouldn’t notice the difference. Don’t
reveal this to the class - they should all believe they have water in their cups, but
make sure you remember which student gets the starch solution. Make it
absolutely clear to the class that they should not drink the water! (Although if
anyone does drink starch solution, it won’t do them any serious harm - make sure
they drink lots of water and inform your First Aider.)
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Explain to the students that they should stand and walk around the room, saying
hello to as many members of the class as they can. But the way in which they say
hello is important: if they want to be “just good friends” they should shake
hands. If they want to have “protected sex” they should “clink glasses” and if
they want to have “unprotected sex” they should exchange fluids – which means
one person pours their water into the other’s cup, and then divide the liquid
again so they both finish with half a glass.
Let this go on for a few minutes (it usually takes a little time for them to warm up
and lose their inhibitions!). Then ask them all to sit back down and to place their
cups on the desk in front of them.
Now reveal that one person in the room was infected with HIV (the pretend
sort), and that you are going to test everyone to see who has caught it. Go round
the class and, using a pipette, add a drop of iodine to each cup. If it turns deep
blue, it shows that the owner of the cup has caught the virus.
You can discuss with the group why some people caught the virus (they had
“unprotected sex”) and why some people didn’t (they remained “just good
friends”, they had “protected sex”, or they were lucky - having “unprotected
sex” with someone who had not caught the virus).
Have some tissues handy in case anyone spills their water and remind your
students to wash their hands at the first opportunity!
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Now hand over to your volunteers to read the Assembly Script. Make sure you are
ready to show the films at the appropriate points! At the end, you might want to
have AIDS Day ribbons or sexual health literature available for the students to
take as they leave.
The assembly can be easily shortened by omitting one of the films.
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Film Digest
Out of Africa (2:29)
Theme: Relationships
Topic: Love and Sex
This film explores the perception of a link
between ethnicity and STIs, among
members of the public.
The Unsuspected Killer (2:20)
Theme: Body and Health
Topic: Sexual Health
Paul Archer, a specialist nurse, discusses
how HIV is perceived, tested and
medicated.
HIV’s Here (1:51)
Theme: Body and Health
Topic: Sexual Health
Shocking facts and figures about the rise of
HIV in Britain.
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Resources
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Digital projector (connected to the internet or you will need to download
the films beforehand).
Microphones (if needed, or available).
Two or three volunteers to read the Assembly Script.
Enough copies of the Assembly Script for you and for each of your
volunteers.
AIDS Day ribbons.
Appropriate Sexual Health literature.
If you are attempting Version 2 of Spreading the Virus, you’ll need the
following items. Ask your friendly Science Department for the starch test
apparatus:
o Enough plastic cups for the group
o Water
o Starch solution
o Iodine
o Pipettes
o A tray to put it all on
o Tissues to deal with any spillages
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Assembly Script
Sexually Transmitted Infections like HIV can spread very easily. Only one person
was infected but look how many people it was passed on to. The only way that
someone can make sure they do not catch or pass on an infection is to protect
themselves every time they have sex, even if they think they know their partner’s
sexual history.
That means using a condom to reduce the chance of infection. Hormonal
contraception methods - like an injection, an implant or the pill - help to prevent
unwanted pregnancy, but they do not stop infections from spreading.
Don’t forget that the legal age to have sex is 16 and no-one has the right to make
you do something you don’t want to do.
Of course it’s not just the physical stuff. No one is saying, “Put on a condom and
everything will be okay”. A condom does not protect your feelings and we all
have a responsibility to look after ourselves and a responsibility to look after the
people we form relationships with.
Today, HIV and AIDS are global problems, but just 30 years ago no one had even
heard of AIDS.
In 1981, a pharmacist called Sandra Ford was working in Atlanta in the USA,
supplying medicines to doctors. One day she received a request from a doctor for
a drug called Pentamidine. This was an experimental drug which was used to
cure people of a rare and dangerous type of pneumonia known as PCP.
Sandra sent the doctor a ten day course of Pentamidine to treat his patient, a
young man he had diagnosed with PCP. About two weeks later, the doctor asked
for a second course of Pentamidine for the same patient. This was very unusual
because after ten days, if the drug hadn’t cured the patient, they were usually
dead from the effects of PCP. Looking through her records, Sandra discovered
that there had been a huge increase in the demand for Pentamidine, with some
doctors asking for as many as five courses of the drug for the same patient.
The doctors all thought they were treating PCP, but this was something new. The
disease had a wide variety of symptoms, including pneumonia and growths on
the skin called Kaposi’s Sarcoma. At first no-one knew what it was, where it
came from, what caused it or how to cure it, and all the patients died.
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Doctors couldn’t even agree what to call it. Because the illness was complicated,
some doctors referred to is as K.S.O.I. which stands for “Kaposi’s Sarcoma and
Opportunistic Infections”. Others called it GRID, which stands for “Gay-Related
Immune Deficiency”, because the first sufferers to be diagnosed all happened to
be gay, but they soon realised that heterosexual people were infected too.
It quickly became obvious that this new illness, whatever it was called, was
passed on through bodily fluids - by sexual contact, or through infected blood.
In December 1981 the first case of AIDS, which stands for Acquired Immune
Deficiency Syndrome, was recorded in the UK. Doctors had finally agreed that
AIDS was the right name to describe the condition because people “acquire” it,
or catch it, from other people; because it causes a deficiency of the immune
system; and because it’s a syndrome, which means it’s made up of a complicated
range of symptoms and illnesses rather than being a single infection. For French
and Spanish speakers, the letters are re-arranged to read SIDA.
Doctors eventually found that the cause of AIDS is a virus which weakens the
body’s immune system, breaking down its ability to fight off infections. It was
named HIV, which stands for the Human Immunodeficiency Virus.
As HIV spread across the world there were still many uncertainties about the
disease and many people panicked. Some of the passengers on a luxury ocean
liner left before the end of the cruise because they thought someone on board
might have the disease; some Christians stopped sharing the communion wine in
Church because they thought that they might catch the infection; some anxious
parents kept their children away from school because other pupils with
haemophilia had been infected by blood transfusion. Various people tried their
best to calm everyone’s fears. When a government minister and later, Princess
Diana shook hands with people who had AIDS, it was reported in all the
newspapers and on the TV news.
In Britain, the Government launched a campaign “Don’t Die of Ignorance” and
the leading AIDS charity at the time, AVERT produced a poster that read, “AIDS,
is everyone’s problem”.
Although these campaigns were reported in the press, the tabloid newspapers
often printed inaccurate, misleading or unfair messages, causing worry and
uncertainty. And prejudice was obvious: people who had contracted AIDS
through blood transfusions, such as haemophiliacs were seen as “innocent
victims” whereas gay men were described as having only themselves to blame.
All these years later, there are still some people who believe that only gay people
can get AIDS.
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Fortunately, most of this nasty victimisation has disappeared, but the mixed
messages created myths, many of which still exist.
So to be absolutely clear:
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You cannot get HIV - the virus that causes AIDS - from kissing.
You cannot get HIV from cuddling.
You cannot get HIV from hand-shaking.
You cannot get HIV from toilets seats.
You cannot get HIV if someone coughs or sneezes on you.
You cannot get HIV from using someone else’s toothbrush.
You cannot get HIV by sharing knives, forks and spoons.
And in Britain, you cannot get HIV if you have a blood transfusion,
because all blood is now screened.
HIV can only be caught if someone has unprotected sex, or if drug users share
needles to inject themselves. A mother can pass HIV on to her baby during
pregnancy, birth or by breastfeeding, although the risks can be greatly reduced
with the proper care.
The first World AIDS Day was in 1988 and has been held every year since on the
1st December. Through the various events and campaigns, it is hoped that people
become better informed so they are in less danger of getting HIV, and less likely
to be prejudiced against people with HIV and AIDS.
The Theme for World AIDS Day this year is “Getting to Zero.” The aim is that
eventually there will be zero new HIV infections, zero AIDS related deaths and
zero discrimination.
Sadly, there is still a lot of prejudice surrounding HIV and AIDS, especially for
people of black and African heritage because the virus is so widespread in
Africa. Some of the views expressed in this film might make some people feel
uncomfortable, but it’s important to hear what other people think so that we can
tackle their ignorance.
Show the film Out of Africa
One of the people interviewed said, “You have to treat every person as an
individual, and you can’t be prejudiced towards anyone.” The world would be a
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better, fairer place if more people though like that. As the film says, HIV is
colour-blind – anyone from any race can catch it.
Another person said, “If I went to Africa, there’d always be that thing in the back
of my mind, ‘Has this person got HIV?’” and she finishes the sentence, “...even
though I know you shouldn’t think like that.” She’s right that someone shouldn’t
be prejudiced against one group of people, but someone should think, “Has this
person got HIV?” if thinking about having sex with them.
Because that’s part of the problem. You can’t tell just by looking at someone if
they are carrying the HIV infection. They wouldn’t look or sound any different to
anyone else. You can’t tell just by looking at someone if they have many other
kinds of infection, whether that’s sexually transmitted – or any other type!
Scientists are still arguing about the best way to reduce the spread of HIV, but
many countries in the world have tried to reduce infection with an “ABC”
campaign:
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‘A’ for Abstain – don’t have sex unless you are married.
‘B’ for Be faithful, once you get married, don’t have sex with anyone else.
‘C’ for use a condom, if you do have sex with anyone else.
Most people under the age of 16, the legal age of consent in Britain, have not had
sex. But if anyone, anytime, has unprotected sex without knowing the full sexual
history of the other person, they could be putting themselves at risk of a sexually
transmitted infection like HIV, or an increasingly common disease called
Chlamydia.
If anyone has sex, they should take responsibility for their own physical and
emotional wellbeing, and the wellbeing of their partner. Many people don’t find
it easy to talk about their sexual history but if they can’t talk about it, should they
doing it?
Perhaps because of ignorance, prejudice and discrimination, some people are
worried about admitting they have AIDS. We hear a lot about the spread of HIV
and AIDS in developing countries, but only the occasional mention of sufferers
in Britain. Most people don’t know anyone with AIDS, so it’s easy to assume that
HIV and AIDS is not a big problem in the UK. But that’s another myth.
Show the film The Unsuspected Killer
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Although most people are better informed about HIV, there are still some people
who think that doctors can cure anything with today’s new drugs and
technology. But that’s not true. There is still no cure for HIV and AIDS. The
effects can be treated, but taking the right drugs at the right time every day is not
easy, and some of the side effects are very unpleasant. And the drugs aren’t
cheap - it costs the NHS millions of pounds every year to treat people with AIDS.
Show the film HIV’s Here
The latest estimates are that there are now more than 33 million people across the
world living with HIV, which includes more than two and a half million
children.
During 2009 about 2.6 million people were newly infected with the virus and
about 1.8 million died from AIDS. Just in Britain, more than 6,000 people were
diagnosed with HIV last year, and in total there are more than one hundred and
fifteen thousand people living here with HIV. More than a quarter of these
people don’t even know that they have the infection, and if they have
unprotected sex, their partners could add to the 20,000 people who have already
died of AIDS in the UK. It’s up to each of us to protect ourselves and the people
we love and to help all infected people in this country and abroad.
We are lucky to live in a rich country where infected people can get the care and
treatment they need and deserve, even though there is no cure.
World AIDS Day is an opportunity to focus on what we can do to ensure that
human rights are protected the world over, and that every country meets its
targets to reduce HIV and AIDS. We can also help to get rid of the ignorance and
prejudice that surrounds the illness and help sufferers get the treatment and care
that they need.
Some people might be thinking, “What can I do?” Well, if nothing else, you
could donate some money and wear a red ribbon to show that you care and to
remind other people of the need for their support.
Or you could find and support a local event. In almost every town across the
country, and in almost every country in the world, there are activities taking
place to mark World AIDS Day.
Or you could even organise your own event at school or in your community.
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Whatever each of us does, together or individually, none of us can afford to think
“It’s not my problem”, or, “If I ignore it, it will all go away”. It won’t, but with
your help and active support, together we can help to reduce the suffering
caused by HIV and AIDS in this country and across the world.
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