Becoming part of the solution

20 January 2008

I sometimes hate the word empowerment – it tends to be over-used by NGOs and in the world of youth work - and very often by me! It’s a bit like the emperors new clothes...

Lakshya project staff

In many ways it implies that power is there to be given by others, and those with it are simply gracious enough to pass it on to those without. 

I believe that ‘power’ is not something to be given by those with it, but something we all have in us. Some people simply need the support to bring it out. As youth workers we do not pass on our ‘power’ to our young people, but work to help them discover their power within. I saw this with my own eyes today. I experienced what I believe genuine empowerment is.

I spent the day shadowing a worker from the Lakshya project at Nagpur YMCA in India - a new project, supported by Y Care International, that enables people living with HIV to live a full life, providing them with counseling, medical care, advice and long-term support through home visits and support groups. It then trains them to become peer educators in their own communities. The project provides a place where people who have been shunned by society because of their sexuality or HIV status, can just come and be. I was struck by the power of the community which has been created: in the confines of these walls, people who were considered outcasts by their communities could feel comfortable and proud of who they are.

The aim of the project is not only to raise awareness of the virus and prevention methods, but also to de-mystify the reality of HIV in India and break down stereotypes and stigma. It is based on a model that is being pioneered in South Africa, and the YMCA is one of the few places in India to replicate it.

I went to visit one of the new peer educators, Laxmi (not her real name), in her home. She became angry as she recounted the level of stigma and discrimination people living with HIV face. Laxmi had been infected by her husband. She recounted how she had been kicked out of her husband’s home and blamed for his AIDS related death. She was now living in a room in her parent’s house with her HIV positive daughter. Laxmi has also been ostracised from a blossoming career, despite the fact that she is well educated and has an MSc.

Laxmi told me that she had always seen herself as the victim or as part of the ‘problem’. In the UK, her story is a classic one that would invoke sympathy and probably pity, a classic ‘western stereotype’ of HIV positive people in the developing world.

Yet she is now a trained peer educator in HIV awareness and runs a support group for positive women. She delivers one-to-one and group sessions with people in her local community about the facts of HIV and how to protect yourself against it. She proudly told me she was not someone to be pitied or felt sorry for, but someone who was now genuinely empowered to make a difference.

Laxmi was no longer the victim…she was now part of the solution.   

Now that is real empowerment.

* This visit took place as part of the Youth Workers Network delegation to India, January 2008.