GES organises workshop on HIV/AIDS for students

Mr Fabian Belieb, Asante-Akim South District Director of Education has underscored the need for people to voluntarily find out their HIV/AIDS status if the nation's fight against the dreaded disease could be successful.

He said knowing one's HIV/AIDS status could help transform promiscuous lifestyles and eventually reduce the prevalence rate of the pandemic.

Mr Belieb made these remarks at an HIV/AIDS workshop for selected teachers and pupils in the district of Asankare near Juaso.

Participants at the 5-day workshop organised by the Ghana Education Service (GES) were drawn from all 58 Junior High Schools (JHS) in the district.

The workshop formed part of the “HIV/AIDS Alert School Model”, and integrated curricula developed by the GES to provide basic schools with the necessary skills to enable them adopt positive behaviour to reduce the risk of contracting
the disease.

According to Mr Belieb, the Socio-economic development of the nation depends on its human resource base, hence it was imperative to target pupils at the basic level in the fight against the disease.

He said Government had over the years committed resources to fight against the disease, since healthy people promote development, and urged the participants to effectively disseminate the message on HIV/AIDS for the benefit of the larger society.

Mr Ampem Baidoo, District Officer in charge of School Health Education Programmes entreated teachers to
prepare lesson Plan on HIV/AIDS topics in such a way that would allow future evaluation of content and scope.

He called for effective collaboration between the participating teachers and pupils to ensure that the knowledge
acquired at the workshop was positively impacted on the pupils in various schools.