HIV/AIDS educator Helen Samilo returned to Thursday Island from PNG to help young people and parents understand more about the disease and ways of preventing infection.

Image

About 55 people attended her public talk on Tuesday night, November 11, sponsored by Queensland Health, where she encouraged Torres Strait Islanders to challenge the fear of talking about sexually transmitted diseases in the interest of spreading prevention rather than infection.

Ms Samilo, 27, who manages the HIV/AIDS positive register in Papua New Guinea, has first-hand experience of managing the illness since contracting the virus, from a boyfriend, when she was just 15-years-old.

The daughter of an evangelical pastor in Middle Fly, Western Province, Ms Samilo initially rejected the diagnosis on the basis that she thought HIV/AIDS sufferers had to feel seriously ill.

"I only had a cough and that didn’t match the health posters about AIDS because those people looked really sick," she said.

Her boyfriend died from the illness in 1997 but so little was understood about the disease that his death, like those of many AIDS victims, was attributed to other causes that sometimes included magic, sorcery and religion.

It would take four more positive test results between the years 1998 and 2003 before Helen finally accepted the HIV diagnosis, but only after a counsellor explained that some people would not feel or look seriously ill for years.

As well as being confronted with a life-threatening illness, Helen faced the task of informing her family. Although they have now accepted her illness, she describes the initial reaction as "chaos".

"Dad was accused of hypocrisy and thrown out of the church," she recalls, adding that not long ago HIV/AIDS was seen as a curse from God.

"In PNG, some people with HIV had even been burned, buried or drowned by their families."

Wanting to see her father returned to the church, Helen chose to educate herself about the illness and challenge the fear that surrounded it.

Firstly, she shared the information she learnt with her family. Then she and her father read through the scriptures for evidence of a loving and caring God.

Helen then stood before the congregation and addressed them. "Then Dad talked to the congregation," she said, "and he was accepted back. It was the most challenging thing in my father’s life."

In the few short years that have followed, Helen has campaigned widely and effectively for better education and treatment of the disease among the PNG people.

She has often encountered shyness about discussing sexual health issues.

"Every human is a sexual being and you don’t have to be promiscuous to get HIV," she says. "Many young people are sexually active so if you are not abstaining, it’s a must that you practice safe sex."

"Use condoms.

"Men have to do the right thing and women have to be empowered to ask, and they need to know how to handle it if the man refuses.

"Men and women need to raise the issue of using a condom [and] not feel ashamed about it."

While discussing such issues with parents can be difficult for many, boys might find it easier to talk with cousins and uncles; and girls with cousins, friends or aunties. Talking with a doctor can also help.

As people don’t always know when they will need a condom, one idea is to keep some with close-by - just in case.

"If you think being found with them could be embarrassing, imagine how much more difficult it will be to cope with an infection," Helen says.

For more information on HIV/AIDS visit http://www.worldaidsday.org.au/ (click on information) or your local health clinic.