HIV/AIDS awareness low among DC teenagers

By: By Jasmine Berry (12th grader), Favour Okechukwu (10th grader)

Posted: 8/19/07

Unlike most District teenagers, 15-year-old Kanesha Overton considers herself well informed about the rising epidemic of HIV/AIDS in the Greater Washington area. But her knowledge about the disease, she says, came from her babysitter, not HIV/AIDS information campaigns or sex education programs.

"I learned about the disease from my babysitter, by her talking to me about it at a young age, starting at about age six," said Overton, a student at Banneker Academic High School. "When I became older, it made me more aware about the truth."

Overton also learned about sex the hard way. Her mother got pregnant with Overton's older brother at age 19 and the father was 22. Before her father could wed her mother, he died of a gunshot to his head. Kanesha was three years old at the time.

But Overton's mother made sure that her daughter did not repeat her mistakes. She began talking to her and explaining what sex was at the age of 13, speaking mostly of its consequences, such as diseases. "My mother always told me, when she had sex and how it affected her life," she said. "It makes me want to wait until I get married."

Such are the sources of sex and HIV/AIDS awareness for many teenagers these days. Overton's story underscores the reality that many teenagers are not getting their information about sex and sexually transmitted diseases from sex education campaigns or programs grown-ups devise for them. Neither are they using the traditional tools grown-ups use to deliver HIV/AIDS and other health-related information campaigns.

For example, on June 27, Mayor Adrian Fenty and the D.C. Department of Health director Gregg Pane announced an initiative to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS among city youth. The mayor's goal is to increase by 25 percent the number of teenagers getting tested for HIV infection. Characteristically, the three-year campaign did not seek youth or parent suggestions on how best to reach its target -- DC's teenagers, who scoff at the mayor's focus on abstinence and revising the kindergarten curriculum to include HIV education.

The teenagers think the mayor is wrong on both counts. "I don't think the campaign will do a good job," said 17-year-old Whitney Powell, a student at Banneker Senior High School. "You have to make sure you're reaching the young people through the media they use. If these campaigns are directed towards youth why not include the suggestions of youth on how best to reach them."

To be successful, the mayor should have gotten the young people's opinions and really involved them in designing the campaign, said Powell, echoeing the feelings of many DC teenagers. "It's them that's affected, so why not have young people involved in making decisions about what the campaigns should and shouldn't do?" Powell asked.

Some parents also question the point of introducing HIV education to children as early as kindergarten. For example, Leon Harris, a father of five and a son in elementary school, is certain that HIV education should not be taught in elementary schools, let alone kindergarten.

"A lot of times, we teach kids stuff and it encourages them," he said. "If you are teaching them at an early age, you're kind of encouraging them, too."

Denita Pittman, who has a six-yea-old son and an 11-year-old daughter, would not want her son to be introduced to HIV education that young either. "My son doesn't know what AIDS is," she said. "He is just getting out of the kindergarten stage, so I think that's too premature. Probably at the first grade they will better understand."

Still, Adam Tenner, executive director of Metro TeenAIDS and an ardent advocate of early sex education, is convinced that starting as early as kindergarten would break down the stigma of HIV/AIDS in the city's youth. "One of the keys to stemming the epidemic is early education," he said.

But Alphonzo White, a 15-year-old student at Eleanor Roosevelt High School, believes the campaign should be directed at parents instead. They are the key, he said. "The parents do affect the youth," White said. "If their parents were in involved in sexual matters when they were young, the kids are going to do the same. It's about the environment you grow up in."