manual: women workers' rights and gender equality - International ...

Exercise 14
Step 1
• Ask the participants if they know what HIV/AIDS is
• Explain it briefly to the participants
Step 2
• Put the traffic light at a place where everybody sees it
• Explain that red means: stop immediately with what you are doing; orange: think twice before
you do it; and green: you can do what you want to do
• Show the cards one by one and ask the participants whether the traffic light should be on red,
orange or green if they do not want to run the risk to become infected with HIV/AIDS
• Ask them why they have decided on each colour and if everybody agrees on it
• See the tip for group work in the Notes for trainers, if you have the time to do this exercise in
smaller groups, followed by discussion in plenary
Step 3
• When all cards are placed start a discussion using the following questions:
- How can you get infected with HIV/AIDS?
- Which behaviour is risky regarding HIV/AIDS infection?
- What can you do to make the risk as small as possible?
- How do you recognize someone who is infected?
- How can you take care of people who are infected?
Step 4
• Tell the participants the following story:
Sao and Chenda are a couple without children. Sao worked for a construction company until
two months ago. He has been fired because he was often very ill. He went to see the doctor
who examined him. The doctor sent him for a blood test. The results from the blood test are
very clear: he is infected with HIV/AIDS. Most probably he will die soon. His wife tries to take
care of him as well as she can. This is difficult because she has to go to work to earn the
money they need so badly. Especially at the moment, because the medicines of Sao are very
expensive. At her work, they found out that her husband has been infected with HIV/AIDS. Her
employer told Chenda that she has to get tested to prove that she is not infected; if she is, he
will fire her.
• Discuss the story using the following questions:
- Do they think this situation is fair?
- Why or why not?
- What would they do in such a situation?
- Can they mention other problems workers face in this type of situation?
- What if Chenda has HIV/AIDS, can her employer fire her?
- Why or why not?
- Do they know of workers infected with HIV/AIDS who were treated in a discriminatory way?
- If so, how?
- What can be done in these situations?
14 Based on the exercise “Stop, Think, Go” in: Friends tell Friends on the Streets by Greg Carl and Nonthathorn
Chaiphech, Thai Red Cross AIDS Research Centre, Bangkok, 2000
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