to improve media coverage of HIV/AIDS...

HIV Turnaround Project in the Mekong region, Internews Europe trained four Mekong sub-region journalists. They traveled to the small Thai village of Sukham Chaipithak to witness how PLHIV (People Living with HIV) form a self-support group within their community, set up an AIDS bank, and grown medicinal plants and other crops for their own use.

When journalists working for Mekong sub-region media heard about Sukham Chaipithak, 52, a community leader in the northern Thai province of Chiang Rai, they assumed the interview would merely be another predictable discussion with a typical HIV/AIDS worker.

But as the story unfolded, they realised that his tale was unusual. They learned that an HIV-positive person can lead a life that is not only happy and long, but also meaningful and self-sustaining. More importantly, they can beginto build this lifestyle without having to wait for outside help.

This was the lesson they learned from Sukham and half a dozen other ethnic Thai and Burmese migrant PLHIV during their four-day field trip.

Looking at more than 28 rai of vast land of paddy field, botanical gardens, and swampland, it is hard to fathom that it was all realised by a meagre number PLHUV who were saved from desperation by Sukham in the past 12 years.

“That’s amazing,” said one radio journalist participant, as she was looking at a long line of green rice fields. “Unlike other migrant communities in other parts of Thailand, everyone here looks happy. It shows that strong social network and support is very important,” she said.

But the journalists soon learned that it took nearly ten years to end discrimination against PLHIV and the stigma attached to AIDS.

Compelled by strong desire to help, Sukham lied to his family and friends, telling them that he, too, was HIV-positive in order to spend two and a half years with PLHIV. He wanted to gain better understanding of the illness that greatly affects his own region.

The situation improved as HIV/AIDS awareness campaigns arrived and slowly began to destroy myths about the virus. With funding and technical support from the local NGO, PLHIV set up an AIDS bank whose special saving program provides both savings and loan for medical treatment and hospital transportation. They are now learning about herbs to minimize the cost of modern medicine.

“In the beginning, nobody knows what HIV or AIDS was. There was no help, no mercy, nothing. Anyone infected with HIV were immediately evicted from their villages,” Sukham recalled, adding that ethnic minorities, particularly Burmese migrant workers, were - and still remain - the most harshly treated.

One journalist from a Bangkok-based newspaper said she was very impressed with PLHIV’s strong support for one another and their determination to survive the hardship. “The story is very inspiring to me and I hope it will be to my readers too.”

During this field trip and other previous Internews workshops, it became clear that journalists, given the time and the opportunity, are deeply interested in hands-on HIV/AIDS reporting experience that exposes them more directly to social issues.