HIV/AIDS video project aimed at Caribbean youth

The Somerset West Community Health Centre and several partner organizations are collaborating on a video project about HIV/AIDS education among Caribbean youth in Ottawa and Jamaica.

The HIV/AIDS Awareness and the Caribbean Diaspora Project will produce at least two informational videos comparing and contrasting HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and resources in Ottawa and Jamaica.

Ottawa has the second largest Caribbean population in Ontario, behind Toronto, according to an Ontario HIV Epidemiological Monitoring Unit report in 2007.

“When it comes to our area, we are noticing that there is an increase of Caribbean people,” says Somerset West HIV/AIDS prevention worker Irene Mlambo.

“They are more vulnerable (to HIV/AIDS) due to issues of being immigrants. There are also issues of gender, poverty, stigma and discrimination.”

Mlambo says HIV/AIDS is particularly on the rise among young women who she says lack self-esteem and resources. She says they do not have the courage to question their partners’ sexual history or ask them to wear condoms. She adds that developing girls are biologically more susceptible to HIV/AIDS.

Ian McKnight, executive director of the Caribbean Vulnerable Communities Coalition, says a similar epidemic exists among Jamaican teenage girls.

“Young girls are at high risk and they intersect with our population that shows the highest rate of HIV infection,” says McKnight.

Mlambo says this parallel among Ottawa and Jamaica’s young women is just one of the cultural connections the video project will address.

The videos will be produced by a team of Canadian and Jamaican youth, aged 19 to 26, with experience in journalism, human rights and medicine.

From January to April 2011, the team will be trained in film production and storyline writing while producing two videos examining HIV/AIDS issues in Ottawa and Jamaica.

“It’s a prevention message being done by the youth for the youth,” says Mlambo.

The first video will examine prevention, treatment and resources, focusing on youth-led HIV/AIDS projects in Ottawa and Jamaica. The second video will be a documentary following the production team’s experiences filming in both countries.

“It will be interesting to see the kind of work that has been done around HIV prevention in Jamaica . . . How does youth tackling HIV in Jamaica translate to how youth attack HIV from here?” says Mlambo.

The Interagency Coalition on AIDS and Development and the African and Caribbean Council on HIV/AIDS in Ontario are also a part of the project, which is government-funded through the Canadian International Development Agency.

“We hope the youth will gain a broader knowledge about issues related to HIV, develop skills that will be of use to them in the future and learn about each other’s lived experiences,” said ICAD executive director Nicci Stein in an email.