Bessie Naomi Maruia
HIV / AIDS - Papua New Guinea (Oceania)
"Papua New Guinea has a fast growing rate of HIV/AIDS infection. Women in PNG are discriminated against because of their gender. Women aged 15-29 are most affected by HIV/AIDS. They are not able to negotiate safe sex and many engage in sex work due to a lack of employment opportunities."
Bessie Mauria, Papua New Guinea
Case Study: Talking to our peers
Bessie’s work focuses on both HIV/AIDS prevention and stigma as well as gender inequity.
Papua New Guinea has a fast growing rate of HIV/AIDS infection. . Women in PNG are discriminated against because of their gender this is called gender inequity. Women aged 15-29 are most affected by HIV/AIDS. They are not able to negotiate safe sex and many engage in sex work due to a lack of employment opportunities.
One program Bessie runs for the AIDS Council of Papua New Guinea is training trainers in basic HIV/AIDS information, gender issues and in breaking down stigma against people living with HIV/AIDS. The training starts by bringing the issue out, letting participants analyse why HIV/AIDS is increasing. Bessie has found that many trainees find the concepts very challenging at first, particularly around gender roles.
The trainees come from all over PNG. Organisations around the different provinces are invited to send potential participants – these organisations include HIV response organisations but also police, correctional facilities, other non-government organisations, private and government organisations. They have trained 80 trainers who now deliver training in all the provinces – coordinated by the provincial AIDS councils (which exist in every province). Trainees have made positive comments on how their values and beliefs are challenged when discussing gender and human rights.
The ability to coordinate both nationally and provincially has meant that this program of HIV/AIDS training has reached an unprecedented number of people in PNG – where they have been able to participate in training by locals and peers. The UN estimates that this training has reached 75% of the PNG population andBessie received an International Day for the Eradication of Poverty award from the UN this year.
The trainers conduct HIV/AIDS prevention training but also provide counselling support to those infected and affected by HIV/AIDS. Those who receive training on a provincial level have been involved in then providing information to their local community and organisation as well as providing care and counselling for those in need in their local communities.
Often in order to monitor the impact of the training, Bessie and her colleagues will participate in the training at a provincial level. Bessie identifies that a key test of their training is if the trainers believe in what they are saying – which allows them to talk about sensitive issues with confidence. One difficulty for trainers is often the challenge of speaking about the sensitive issues in their own provinces – particularly talking about gender roles.
Gender is also one of the biggest challenges for Bessie. How to be taken seriously as a young woman talking about sensitive issues in different provinces, particularly to older men and women. Bessie’s strategies for overcoming this have been to focus on talking about what’s obvious – things that are practically evident within the particular community. She takes a strengths-based approach by acknowledging the strengths that the community has, and by particularly focusing on participants own experiences in life.
In general, Bessie believes that one of the most important things she has learnt in this work is that you have to use people’s practical experience to help connect. Bessie believes that you cannot just bring approaches or ideas in from elsewhere. Instead, she tries to bring out the issues in small groups by asking what the practical experiences and examples are. She then gets the groups to discuss why it is happening. This process often helps challenge the reasons people believe things are happening. One of the powerful things about the program is breaking down the concept that the ideas about HIV/AIDS or women are new or Western concepts, particularly when you have trainers from within people’s own local communities talking about local issues.
One of the most significant things that Bessie’s work has aimed to combat is the strict gender roles and gender inequity within communities in PNG. When monitoring the impact of their training on the trainers and in the provinces, Bessie came across stories of how the training impacted on people’s lives in the relationships between men and women.
In the highlands, where gender roles are particularly strong, Bessie was the told the story of a man who never walked in the market place with his wife, but after the training, went and walked there holding her hand. This man was able to overcome the difficulty of being seen to do things that his forefathers never did.
One challenge for Bessie and the AIDS Council in their monitoring is that they have many great stories but none of it is written down. This is the next challenge for them.
