International Federation of Red Cross and Red Cresent Societies - 2 August 2002
Helge Kvam in Kuito, Angola

Four times a week, a group of peer educators - one should perhaps call them actors - perform in the camps for displaced people in the central Angolan town of Kuito and its surroundings.

"I want everyone to know that AIDS is disease that kills and that there is no cure for it," says Alexander.

The group of fifteen volunteers communicates in a very direct way. During some 30 minutes of intensive acting, singing and dancing, the audience will meet both commercial sex workers and their customers. The volunteers talk openly about sex and the demonstration of how to put on a condom is so vivid, that it leaves little opportunity for someone to say they don't know how to do it.

"We have never met anyone who got offended by the very direct way we perform," Alexander says with a big smile on his face. It is clear that both he and his group thoroughly enjoy the acting and performing.

"I love to act. I would like to become a real actor one day," says Alexander. He is still attending school in the town of Kuito. Asked if he believes that it will be possible, he becomes quiet for a moment before he says shyly: "I don't know - but I hope so."

Alexander is one of more than 250 volunteers of the Angola Red Cross who is actively working to prevent the spread of HIV and AIDS. In addition to the acting, the peer educators are also distributing condoms supplied by the ICRC.

"It is difficult to get condoms in Kuito, not least in the camps. That is a big problem, because it is not enough to know how to use a condom if you cannot get hold of one," says Alexander.

Nobody really knows how big the problem of HIV/AIDS is in Angola. The official infection rate is only 2.7 per cent, which is not a true reflection of reality. During 27 years of civil war in Angola, access to statistics has been very difficult.

Given the high rates of infection in neighbouring countries, it is likely to be much higher. Normally the number of people infected rises during war time. Many soldiers are away from their families and relatives get separated.

The Angola Red Cross considers HIV prevention a major priority and hopes to recruit many more volunteers like Alexander. He certainly wants to continue volunteering for the Red Cross and not only on their HIV programmes. He also knows first aid. "Sometimes we also make plays about other health problems," he explains, mentioning a performance on how to avoid the spread of diseases by boiling water.

The 15 young men and women in the acting troupe are aged between 15 and 30 years. They decide themselves which subjects they want to raise. "We write the scripts and we do the performance ourselves," Alexander adds with pride.
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