For Baan Gerda, Wheel2Wheel is a helpful vehicle to roll out our messages which need to be taken to non HIV/AIDS communities.
As far as the little Baan Gerda village (www.baangerda.org) is concerned it is necessary to understand that practically everybody in that community carries the virus. Dealing with it is part of day to day life and almost to trivial to talk about it. We, the management, have to bring up the subject regularly to keep the information alive. Experienced psychologists come to visit Baan Gerda and teach matters the kids have to know for their future life, especially social behavior and responsibility which come along with the infection.
Most of our children will be leaving Baan Gerda once they have completed a academic/professional education. Eventually they will try to find their place in the ‘outside’ society and find out that society has a different conception of HIV/AIDS. They will realize that HIV/AIDS carries a stigma which, once their HIV situation is known, will not allow them to take part in regular life as everybody else does.
Apart from caring for 86 children and 20 adults all of which are infected by the virus our major concern is to prepare society to accept HIV sufferers for what they are – very normal human beings who claim the right to share the blessings of this world. To support integration of those infected we have prepared a documentary, “Living with the Tiger”, which should be seen by everybody especially by young people. At this stage we are showing the film in Thai universities and schools.
We need support to carry the message of normality into the world and Wheel2Wheel will be a significant help in doing so.
Karl Morsbach, Baan Gerda Founder
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