Fana radio station and possibilities!
Today we took a nearly two hour trek from the village, past Bamako, down the road towards the city of Segou, to visit an HIV/AIDS service organization as well as a radio station in Fana, a larger town northeast of Bamako. I picked up some bits of information that are interesting and relevant to what I might end up doing in Mali.
Our first stop was the FANA CSREF, where we spoke with the doctor and pharmacist who ran the HIV/AIDS care unit there. The HIV/AIDS rate is relatively low in Mali (not so far from the U.S.’s rate), and this is a mixed blessing because it means that HIV is much more swept under the rug and the stigma of HIV is not as well-addressed as in more affected countries. Whereas when I was in Uganda AIDS organizations were everywhere, the doctor at Fana spoke of having a hard time mobilizing people around the issue because it wasn’t perceived as a priority. A significant barrier to care is that many Malians (even some among the educated) hold the belief that HIV doesn’t actually exist as a disease. Thus, building up any urgency around the disease is an uphill battle, especially when exacerbating practices like polygamy are taken into account. When we made a quick stop afterwards at an HIV/AIDS advocacy organization, there was a similar sentiment that many people simply don’t want to acknowledge it, or they attribute it to any number of other factors.
While HIV/AIDS will likely not be a primary work area for me in Mali, it is addressed as one of the goals of the Peace Corps Mali health education program, and recognized as an area of under-met need. It was interesting to be able to compare the East African (specifically Ugandan) and now the Malian experience with the disease, and to get a sense of what challenges you may be up against in implementing HIV/AIDS related activities in village. Especially after hearing some of the teenagers in my village say they did not think HIV was a real disease, I see the need for better, more comprehensive information and education being available, and especially with my interest in working with young adults in particular, it’s an issue that could very well come up in service.
Our last stop for the day was Fana’s main radio station. Radio is an essential public health tool here, where poor access to other technology and very low literacy prevent other mediums from being effective. It’s easy to see the appeal. Walk into any village family’s compound, including my own, at any time of the day, and you’ll likely hear the radio–it’s already very accessible, it’s in the local language, and it reaches a lot of people at one time at very low cost. We got a firsthand taste of delivering a health message on radio when two of our group got to deliver short PSAs in Bambara on-air. We worked with our LCFs the day before to translate two health messages–one about the importance of prenatal consultations, and the other about preventing diarrhea and associated sicknesses–into Bambara, then chose two people to speak. We learned that some PCVs have found considerable success in collaborating with radio or at least using it to their advantage for everything from weekly health talks on air, to advertising baby weighings or awareness events. While I didn’t come in with any special interest in radio, it was great to learn about another great potential resource for relaying health messages.
