HIV/AIDS Distigmatisation at Work Place: More Than Comprehensive Knowledge Required
Mburu Samuel,
Mutuku Irene
Issue:
Volume 3, Issue 6, December 2017
Pages:
63-69
Received:
20 November 2017
Accepted:
1 December 2017
Published:
8 January 2018
Abstract: According to the National AIDS Control Council (NACC) of Kenya, Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS) prevention starts and ends with behavior change and anything else comes in between. Importantly, “although antiretroviral therapy (ART) was working, countries will not be able to treat their way out of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, as it is not sustainable in the long run”. This highlights the critical role of healthy behavioral change, HIV status awareness, distigmatisation, stopping of new infection, inclusion of key populations, support groups and psychosocial support of people living with HIV (PLWH) in HIV/AIDS management and prevention strategies. Significantly, high levels of HIV/AIDS knowledge do not always translate to a positive behavior change. The purpose of this descriptive survey was to investigate the levels of HIV/AIDS knowledge, awareness, perceptions and attitudes towards the virus and PLWH among members of staff a public university in Kenya. This was a descriptive survey in which all the members of staff (due to the small population of only 288) were targeted as participants, issued with self-administered questionnaire, structured according to the NACC guidelines for public sector. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics with IBM SPSS version 22 software. Significantly, HIV/AIDS knowledge levels were adequately high as indicated by the 83% female and 69% male employees who strongly agreed that the risk of HIV infection can be reduced by having one uninfected partner. Similarly, 60% females, 58% males strongly disagreed that mosquitoes could transmit HIV, while 57% males, 63% females strongly disagreed that one could get HIV by sharing food with an infected person. However, despite the high HIV/AIDS knowledge, awareness levels, HIV- associated stigma (18% males & 10% females), ignorance of effectiveness of condom in prevention (10% females & 7% males) still persisted. Essentially, if these drawbacks are not decisively dealt with, they will reverse the gains so far achieved in the HIV/AIDS response. These findings are important in informing stakeholders, policy makers such as work place HIV/AIDS policy makers in formulation, implementation, designing healthy behavioral change, HIV status awareness, stopping of new infections, distigmatisation and preventive strategies in workplaces. This will have a direct impact on HIV/AIDS management, prevention and thus help in attainment of the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) number 3 on ensuring health for all, promoting well-being for all at all ages, 90-90-90 strategy and the Kenya’s vision 2030 of a HIV free country.
Abstract: According to the National AIDS Control Council (NACC) of Kenya, Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS) prevention starts and ends with behavior change and anything else comes in between. Importantly, “although antiretroviral therapy (ART) was working, countries will not be able to treat their way out of the HIV/A...
Show More
Blended Learning: The Possibilities of Benefiting from Others' Experiences and Problems of Implementations at the Lebanese University
Ali Abdalla El-Husseini,
Abeer Taha
Issue:
Volume 3, Issue 6, December 2017
Pages:
70-75
Received:
18 October 2017
Accepted:
19 December 2017
Published:
11 January 2018
Abstract: The inevitable fact is that the revolutionary growth of the Communication and Information Technology (CIT), in a remarkably short period of time, is changing the world, and consequently, the face of education rapidly. In most of the world’s modern credible universities, it can be clearly seen that CIT has become an essential element in the teaching-learning process. Not catching up with technology, teaching at the Lebanese University is done in a traditional way from presentation to assessment, and the high percentage of failure in many faculties is not but evidence of the poor quality of learning. Moreover, the curriculum does not take into consideration individual learning styles, which are supposed to have their impact on learning. Furthermore, during the past years, many faculties in several branches (mainly Saida, Beqaa, Tripoli) closed for several reasons and both students' and teachers' time was wasted, and under a lot of time pressure, tried to cover the syllabi by the end of the year. Consequently, this study proposes Blended Learning as a solution to these problems and it tries to explore whether the Lebanese University can benefit from the experiences of other universities implementing Blended Learning. It also addresses the problems the Lebanese University might face in implementing such a program, which is a mix of Distance Education (DE) and classroom teaching despite the fact that itcan improve learning quality at the Lebanese University (LU).
Abstract: The inevitable fact is that the revolutionary growth of the Communication and Information Technology (CIT), in a remarkably short period of time, is changing the world, and consequently, the face of education rapidly. In most of the world’s modern credible universities, it can be clearly seen that CIT has become an essential element in the teaching...
Show More
