Bandar Seri Begawan

Bandar Seri Begawan - The Brunei Darussalam Aids Council is going to educate and sensitise secondary school teachers about HIV and Aids by the end of January, its vice-president (Activities and Events) told The Brunei Times.

"Hopefully by the end ofJanuary, we will start educating 30 school counsellors at public schools on HIV and Aids and their related matters," Iswandy Ahmad said.

Iswandy explained they chose to conduct the programme at secondary schools because social issues start among adolescent students. "It is a time when everything is confusing for them (students)," he said yesterday.

Asked why the council only chose to educate 30 counsellors from public schools, the vice president said, "We are going to start with these 30 secondary schools first, until we get feedback from them. Only then can we see where we are headed towards next."

He explained that they needed to assess the feedback because their aim was to "localise" the dissemination of HIV and Aids education.

"We want to localise HIV and Aids education in Brunei according to the needs of the country, rather than copying and pasting what other countries are doing."

"We are looking to continue our efforts in educating and creating awareness among society through our HIV Awareness Programme for Peers and Youth (Happy) Programme, but with an emphasis on the education sector," he said.

Iswandy added that the council hopes to see social and reproductive health education implemented into the school curriculum.

In a previous report, Iswandy said the education sector should look into enhancing efforts, such as including HIV and Aids education in the curriculum.

Some examples in increasing awareness were teenage pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections, family values and religious aspects, the vice president suggested.