The following post was submitted by POA Online Volunteer Lisa Matthews.

A recent review by the African Union of the Blind (AFUB) has shown that many education programmes exist to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS, many of these ignore the needs of blind people with positive HIV statuses.

Jean Pierre, an 18 year-old high school student from Rwanda, explains the problems faced: ‘I attended a training session [about HIV/AIDS] in my home area but I did not enjoy it because they used a video which I didn’t understand because nobody explained what was going on; they also gave me a print booklet to read. But after I attended the training by Rahab, I understood much better because I touched a condom and learned how to use it.  Things were explained to me much better.’

Rahab is just one of the blind and partially sighted HIV/AIDS Peer Educators used by AFUB to combat inaccessible awareness-raising on HIV/Aids across Africa.  AFUB works in fifty African countries, and has implemented peer education in ten of these.

Handicap International is also addressing the issue of HIV/AIDS among blind people in Rwanda.  The co-ordinator of this programme, Jacques Sindayigaya, held a workshop in in May this year to discuss ways of dealing with situation.  Sindayigaya highlighted at this event some of the downfalls of mainstream HIV/AIDS programmes: ‘Programs to fight AIDS have not been considering the fact that [blind] people cannot read what is written in either books or billboards…[the programme] will help in finding ways of helping and incorporat[ing] them in the general program to fight HIV/AIDS among Rwandans’.   Five pilot districts in the Eastern Province have been selected (Gatsibo, Kayonza, Kirehe, Ngoma and Nyagatare), and representatives of these districts received training on HIV testing blind people.

The Rwandan government has recognised the exclusion of disabled people from HIV policies across Africa; and in response to this has included them as the fifteenth target group for the national HIV response.  It has also established the UAHLS: the ‘Umbrella Association of People with Disabilities Against AIDS’.  This institutional response, combined with the innovative and committed activities of several disability groups, promises a brighter future for blind people living with HIV/Aids in Rwanda.