Inter Press Service - May 17, 2001
Farah Kahn

She shatters stereotypes of the beauty queen - she is articulate and socially conscious.

Kwelagobe wore a really cool Afro, simple shirt and slacks - no beauty queen gloves or gown - when she addressed the conference Thursday. She is part of the UNFPA's face to face campaign, which uses celebrities in advocacy work on HIV/Aids.

Kwelagobe runs a foundation in Gabarone, Botswana and works with young people. Her country has the highest rate of HIV/Aids infection in the world - it afflicts 35 per cent of 1.5 million citizens - with young women between 15 and 24 years old twice as likely to be infected.

One of the ways in which Botswana will slow the spread of Aids is by targetting the young in behavioural change practices: getting young people to delay the onset of their first sexual experience; teaching them safe sex and providing them with other leisure activities.

"I want to put youth concerns and needs at the forefront of my work," says Kwelagobe. "These days I think of Aids all the time. But I can't say that this is the same for a young woman in Botswana when she meets a young man. It should be, but young people are still living in the moment."

Kwelagobe was joined at Thursda's meeting by Belgian TV star, Goedele Liekens, who also has visited Botswana as a UNFPA goodwill ambassador several times.

Earlier this year, she took five Flemish teenagers to Botswana to see firsthand the ravages of Aids. It changed their lives, as witnessed by a documentary shown Thursday. Forsaking celebrity treatment, the Belgian group went to Aids funerals, cared for Aids babies and formed close links with 28-year-old Staphie and her two daughters who are all HIV-positive.

They made friends with teenagers and discussed sex - in one clip from the documentary, they were pictured handing out condoms to Batswana youth. This provoked a sharp response from Canut Niyonkuru, a Burundian ambassador who said, "relations between teenagers in Europe were different from those in Africa. If a young woman carries a condom, it is like an invitation".

He added that it was far more preferable for young people to learn from elders. In a lively exchange, Liekens replied that the young people they had met had complained about the embarrassment in going to get condoms "from an aunty of an aunty at the clinic. You can't ask an aunt of an aunt how to unroll a condom in the dark," she said.

Referring to the incident, the UNFPA's Africa Director Fama Hane-Ba, said that conflicts between cultural practices and modern reality were common on the continent. The trick, she said, lies in using culture to spread good practices in Aids prevention.

In Senegal, for example, the organisation had worked with religious leaders, teaching them about HIV and Aids. Many ascribed Aids to promiscuous lifestyles, but once they realised that infection was spread in many ways, they were drawn into the national fight.

"We know what can work. We have to share experiences," said Hane-Ba.
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