Mahafreed Irani, Tejaswini Mirji and Megha Chaturvedi were shocked. For they just discovered how knowledgable their generation is on a subject which they were planning to make a film on.
This group of three final-year journalism students from Sophia College, who have produced a three-minute documentary on AIDS awareness in the city, found that about 85 to 90 per cent of the students in south Mumbai’s elite colleges didn’t know how the disease spreads.
“We wanted to make a film on a health-related topic,” said Megha. “But from a survey conducted recently by World Health Organisation (WHO) we learnt that all the new HIV-affected cases have patients aged below 25 years. We felt that the reason must be lack of awareness. Unless a person is aware about something, they will be completely unable to protect themselves,” added Megha.
“So we decided to check how many people really know about how AIDS spreads,” said Tejaswini, her classmate. “We went to practically all the colleges around town—HR, Jai Hind, Sydenham and KC—and other departments in our own college,” said Mahafreed.
“The awareness level was abysmal,” said Megha. “There were people who just looked at their friends waiting for an answer. Some said they didn’t know or gave wrong replies. Most of them didn’t even know the difference between HIV and AIDS,” she added.
Some of the common misconceptions about AIDS are that it spreads through mosquito bites, kissing and sharing a common toilet seat, said the trio.
“These are kids who all look pretty smart otherwise, and they are from well-known colleges,” said Mahafreed.
“When we spoke to the Mumbai District AIDS Control Society, they said that they largely have direct communication with the National Social Service (NSS) cadets, who unfortunately only approach students and colleges about the disease during December, the AIDS awareness week,” said Mahafreed.
Their three-minute film is a collection of sound bytes taken from students they randomly interviewed for a week.
Know the facts
Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is caused by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)
HIV spreads through:
Unprotected sex
Use of infected needles or instruments
Mother to child: A pregnant woman carrying the virus will pass it on to her foetus
