2007年VOA标准英语-Teaching Youth to Prevent HIV and AIDS in DC

By Véronique LaCapra
Washington, DC
11 September 2007

In Washington, D.C., about one in fifty people has AIDS, and the annual rate of new AIDS cases is more than ten times the national average

In Washington, D.C., about one in 50 people has AIDS, and as many as one in 20 may have HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The annual rate of new AIDS cases in America's capital city is over ten times the national average, probably the highest of any city in the United States. One local organization is teaching young people to fight HIV and AIDS — and empowering them to teach each other.

Adam Tenner is the Executive Director of Metro¹ TeenAIDS, a Washington, D.C. group that works with local youth to help them better understand and confront the AIDS epidemic². Some 100,000 young people between the ages of 13 and 24 live in the nation's capital, and Tenner estimates that there is approximately one HIV-infected young person in every classroom in the District.

"We know that young people are being infected," says Tenner. "Mostly young African American women, and young, Latino and African American […] men who have sex with other men."

Even with the high infection rates, Tenner says it can be difficult to get local teenagers to take AIDS seriously. With high rates of gun violence in many neighborhoods, Tenner explains, many young people struggle just to survive day-to-day. "Where that kind of low expectation exists it's hard to really worry about a virus that may kill you ten years from now."

And the D.C. school system, Tenner adds, has not been helping³, because young people get very little, if any, HIV education in the classroom.

Metro TeenAIDS provides HIV counseling and testing services for young people

To get HIV information to teenagers, it helps to mix in a little fun. So, to get young people to come out for National HIV Testing Day this past summer, Metro TeenAIDS organized a basketball tournament.

Along with fun informational events, Metro TeenAIDS provides young people with year-round reproductive health education in D.C. schools and through community organizations. They also provide HIV counseling and testing services.

As Metro TeenAIDS program director Anne Wiseman puts it, the group creates "a space" where young people can get answers to the questions they need, but are often afraid, to ask. "I tell young people, I kind of set the stage for them, that there's nothing they can ask me that's going to knock me off my seat, because I've heard it all!"

Metro TeenAIDS program director, Anne Wiseman. She helped organize a basketball tournament to get young people to come out for National HIV Testing Day

The questions that young people ask her range from how to negotiate with their partners about not having sex, and how to fight peer pressure, to what to do if they've had unprotected sex, and are worried about the risks.

Another way that Metro TeenAIDS creates a supportive environment for young people is through its after-school youth center, called "FreeStyle."

Dwayne Lawson-Brown, 23, has worked and volunteered for Metro TeenAIDS for the past seven years. He started an "open-mic night" at FreeStyle: an evening when young people can come to the center and sing, rap, or read poetry.

Dwayne Lawson-Brown (left) started an "open mic night", at Metro TeenAIDS' youth center, "FreeStyle". Terra Moore (right) is an open mic night participant

Lawson-Brown emphasizes that at FreeStyle, everyone is welcome. "Whether you're positive, you're negative, straight, gay, bi[sexual], lesbian, transgender, […] black, white, Latino, Asian, […] it doesn't matter, we're pretty accepting."

Acceptance and empowerment are at the core of Metro TeenAIDS' mission. Executive Director Adam Tenner says the group's peer outreach program plays a critical role. The group employs 15 young people, who are trained to take the message of HIV prevention out to the streets. By having young people talk to their peers, says Tenner, "it's not some adult coming to them, and saying, 'Hey, you should do this, or you should do that.' And it's incredibly effective."

As a peer outreach educator for Metro TeenAIDS, fifteen-year-old Desha Smith talks to other young people about HIV and AIDS, and encourages them to get tested

Desha Smith, 15, is a peer outreach educator for Metro TeenAIDS. She is small for 15, and at first she seems like she might be too shy to walk up to other teenagers on the street, hand out condoms, and talk to them about HIV.

But Desha says she loves her job. "It helps me out because it helps me learn about AIDS and HIV," she explains, "and it helps me protect my friends." She says that it is the best job that she could have, because young people her age really need to know about HIV and AIDS. According to Desha, many of her peers are already sexually active. About HIV/AIDS, Desha has this to say: "I just want to get it out there that it's bad […] and it needs to be stopped in DC."

And Desha may soon be getting some help from the city — at least indirectly⁴. The mayor of Washington, D.C., recently launched a three-year initiative to prevent the spread of HIV in young people. The staff at Metro TeenAIDS will be watching. They hope the city will follow through on its promises, and join them in giving D.C.'s young people the information and skills they need to protect themselves from AIDS.

1 metro   

n.地铁；adj.大都市的；(METRO)麦德隆(财富500强公司之一总部所在地德国，主要经营零售)

参考例句：

• Can you reach the park by metro?你可以乘地铁到达那个公园吗？
• The metro flood gate system is a disaster prevention equipment.地铁防淹门系统是一种防灾设备。

2 epidemic   

n.流行病；盛行；adj.流行性的，流传极广的

参考例句：

• That kind of epidemic disease has long been stamped out.那种传染病早已绝迹。
• The authorities tried to localise the epidemic.当局试图把流行病限制在局部范围。

3 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

4 indirectly   

adv.间接地，不直接了当地

参考例句：

• I heard the news indirectly.这消息我是间接听来的。
• They were approached indirectly through an intermediary.通过一位中间人，他们进行了间接接触。