JEMS launches HIV/AIDS competition

JEMS Progressive Community Organization officially launched its HIV and AIDS Awareness and Prevention School Poster Competition this week with an orientation and training workshop for coordinating teachers held yesterday, October 8.{{more}}

Held in partnership with the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health and the Environment, the programme is open to fifth and sixth grade students enrolled in the five primary schools in the Southeast sector of mainland St. Vincent, and to students in forms one and two in secondary schools along the Southeast corridor of the island from Kingstown to North Union.

The teachers received information on HIV and AIDS and learned age-appropriate teaching methods for communicating the important facts to their students. Additionally, the competition and exhibition guidelines and processes were explained. Workshop trainers included Abner Richards of the Ministry of Education, teacher of the Stubbs Primary School and program coordinator Yokan Blugh, and Peace Corps volunteer Ann Crytser.

Based on an overall theme of HIV and AIDS awareness and prevention, primary school students are asked to create posters on the theme of “Abstinence.” The theme for secondary school student art competition is “Stigma and Discrimination.”

Participating schools will host in-school exhibitions of the students’ art, and select three posters to be submitted to JEMS in an overall competition awarding first, second and third place prizes in primary and secondary school categories. Winners will be announced at a JEMS-hosted World AIDS Day Rally on Saturday, Dec. 5.

The JEMS HIV and AIDS Awareness and Prevention School Poster Competition is designed to increase knowledge of HIV and AIDS among primary school children and young teens.

The programme is part of a year-long education, training and community awareness campaign led by JEMS and supported by two grants from the United States Peace Corps and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).