by NOEMI LOPINTO

“The Minister of Health told us, ‘I have 120 health dossiers to chose from and I have the budget to deal with 30,’” says Marie-Françoise Sprungli, a 41-year-old registered nurse living in Peru. “AIDS is not top priority. Peruvian women are still dying in childbirth, of unsafe abortions, kids don’t have food to eat and are dying of pneumonia because there are no vaccinations. But we say the AIDS crisis must be challenged now.”

Sprungli and her partner, Rocio Roncal Rojas, a 35-year-old obstetrician, are representatives of Kallpa, a non-governmental organization working to educate Peruvian youths about HIV/AIDS, headquartered in the capital, Lima, and with regional offices in Ayacucho, Cuzco and Iquitos. On October 10 they wrapped up a week-long information exchange with Montreal-based organizations dealing with HIV/AIDS. Although Peru’s rate of infection has been lower than that of some other South American countries, it’s growing rapidly. According to Kallpa, there are 12,151 declared AIDS cases in Peru, and they estimate between 50,000 and 70,000 are HIV-positive. (In comparison, Health Canada estimates that, as of the end of 1999, there have been 20,000 reported AIDS cases and 50,000 people are HIV-positive in Canada.)

Sprungli and Rojas are here as the guests of Canadian University Students Overseas (CUSO)-Quebec, a development-assistance agency. CUSO-Quebec set up meetings between Kallpa and local community organizations, including needle-exchange and youth-outreach groups Séro Zero and CACTUS, the Coalition des organismes communautaires québécois de lutte contre le sida (COCQ-SIDA), the CLSC Plateau Mont-Royal, Développement et Paix, an international development agency, the Clinique Communautaire de Pointe-St-Charles, the Centre for AIDS Services of Montreal (CASM) and the Centre d’Action Bénévole de Montréal, as well as a few others, for information and strategy exchange. “AIDS began here [in North America] earlier, so these groups really have a lot of experiences to share,” says Sprungli. “We learn from the organizations here and what they did, and benefit from their knowledge. Of course, there is always the hope that we will find funds somewhere.”

Marcelo Solervicens, CUSO-Quebec’s communications director, says Kallpa’s visit is part of a cooperative effort between his group and other human rights organizations in South America. “It was considered an important step to share their experiences, to get more knowledge and see if they could extend their partnerships to other organizations,” says Solervicens. “In so-called undeveloped countries like Peru, there are no resources for social aid. Our resources are also limited, but we make a contribution where we can, often sending Canadian volunteers down there. By sharing experiences we can confront these situations and maybe make a difference.”

Facing familiar obstacles

Sprungli, who is originally from Switzerland, paints a familiar portrait of the climate in Peru, straight out of the memory of North American AIDS activists’ early battles against the Church, homophobia and government indifference to HIV/AIDS. Homosexual culture is invisible, Sprungli says, despite the fact that adolescent boys are more likely to have their first sexual contact with another man than with a prostitute. The population is also 90 per cent Catholic. “There are pockets of activism, but no one wants to be president of the Peruvian Homo’s Club,” says Sprungli. “In 1992, the rate of infection was 10 men for one woman, and now it is 2.5 men for one woman. People have gone from thinking that AIDS is a gay disease to a disease of ‘living badly.’ Married women are not in a position to demand their husbands use condoms, and many consider marriage to be a protection in itself, despite the fact that marital fidelity is not expected from men.”

Kallpa has focused their efforts on reaching adolescents in high schools. The association’s statistics show that 35 per cent of AIDS sufferers are between the ages of 20–29, which means infection most likely took place between the ages of 10 and 19. There are 1,000 new cases every year.

In Peru, access to condoms is limited and sexual initiation begins early. A 14 year old who walks into a pharmacy to buy protection would be laughed out of the store, says Sprungli. So Kallpa made condom machines from scratch and installed them in the bathrooms of popular discotheques. And they created the “Discosida,” an installation in a tent designed to look like a discotheque, complete with flashing lights and music, but packed with information about HIV transmission. They bring the tent from school to school, complete with two superheroes, Supercondom and Segurichica (Securi-Girl). The two make regular visits to schools and discotheques, and also put on street performances. Segurichica does not carry protection herself, but she is capable of telling the guy that she will not have sex unless he uses a condom.

“We have to find concrete, creative ways to stop the spread,” says Sprungli. “We need access to health clinics for adolescents, access to condoms—these things are uncommon in Peru. There are tremendous pressures on boys to have sex from parents and friends. At 15, a boy must have had sex, or else he is not a man. In the Amazon, sexual initiation begins at age 12 for boys and 14 for girls. The average age for teen pregnancy is 14.”

Political turmoil proves deadly

Peruvian politics have been especially turbulent in the last two years, disrupting the already antagonistic relationship between non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the Peruvian government.

In September 2000, the Peruvian dictator Alberto Fujimori’s government was shaken by scandal and was declared “morally unfit” to govern two months later. Fujimori resigned, as did the top brass of the army, air force and navy, the deputy Treasury Minister, the president of the Supreme Court and nine senior judges. The head of the Peruvian Congress was then appointed president. An election followed in June 2001, and centre-left economist Alejandro Toledo was elected. Toledo, a native Indian, promised radical reforms, including a government clean-up.

The clean-up has caused bureaucratic chaos, and cost AIDS patients their access to medication for up to six months. “The only people who have access to HIV-fighting drugs, by law, are pregnant mothers and children,” Sprungli explains. “The problem is that since we have changed governments three times in a year, the medications stopped coming. We had a dictatorship government, then a transition government for a year, and now Toledo got rid of all the chief bureaucrats who worked with the dictator. There is no public service training in Peru. If a person gets a job working for government, they are learning from scratch. Furthermore, we had no statistics to look at for over a year. We would go to three different statistics offices and get three different numbers.”

However, the turbulence has forced Kallpa to work closer with other NGOs, to organize and to link arms. “With all the problems, the conservative politics and culture, it’s obliged us to work together, to denounce the government, to [demonstrate] solidarity with each other,” Sprungli says. “The really hard work is working with people who are living with the disease. Those folks live in a terrible situation. Peru is 10 times worse than any stories I heard about here because there is no one who will give them anything to eat, no one who will let them sleep under a roof, no institution which will give them medicines. The advantage of working in prevention is that it’s happy work. We have the good luck of working with young people and this is why we permit ourselves to hope.” :