Teen Girl/Living with HIV/AIDS Botswana

Independent Films, Teens, Health

Botswana as all of southern Africa has a high rate of HIV/AIDS infected populations, including teens and children. The Botswana-Baylor Clinical Center of Excellence started a teen club, which has become a model of how to tackle the growing number of HIV positive teenagers who need emotional and psychological support in addition to medical treatment. Oh yes, if it should make any difference to how you see and feel about these teens, most have been infected through mother/infant transmission from birth.

Katlego Koboto, 18 years old, Peer Educator at Botswana Baylor Centre for Excellence Teen Club:
“My name is Katlego Koboto, I am 18 years old, and I’m living with HIV. I first found out I was positive when I was 11 years old. At the time I was really really sick. And then I got hospitalised and then I got tested for HIV. And that’s when they found out it was through mother to child transmission.”

Katlego is one of over 600 teenagers currently receiving treatment for HIV at the Botswana-Baylor Centre of Excellence in Gabarone. Dealing with the usual peer pressures and challenges of being a teenager is hard enough. Being an HIV positive teenager can often lead to depression and non-adherence to treatment. This can have life-threatening consequences.

SOUNDBITE (English) Michael Tolle, Associate Director, Botswana-Baylor Centre of Excellence:
“The challenges for adolescents in maintaining good care are multiple. They center around psychosocial issues. Prominently depression, anxiety – things that make their adherence not optimal.

SOUNDBITE (English) Katlego Koboto, 18 years old, Peer Educator at Botswana Baylor Centre for Excellence Teen Club:
“At first I thought, I didn’t think that I was the only one, but I just felt alone. I felt like I was the only outcast who was living with HIV and had to take Meds. “

Katlego started coming to the Baylor Children’s Clinic in 2008. The facility is the first of its kind on the African continent providing state-of-the-art care and treatment for over 4,000 HIV-infected children, teens and families from around Botswana.

In order to address the unique needs of teenagers like Kathlego, Baylor, created the Teen Club – a peer support group intervention for HIV-positive adolescents between the ages of 13 and 19.

Meeting one Saturday per month, the teen clubs help HIV positive adolescents like Kathlego to manage their health and stick to their treatment regimes.

But the clubs do more than this; they also help these adolescents build positive relationships, improve their self-esteem, and help with the high levels of discrimination that make it hard for young people to disclose their status in Botswana.

SOUNDBITE (English) Yasmin Mussa, volunteer Botswana, Baylor Teen Club:
“There’s this image associated with it, with being sick, and people are just so afraid of that – and so when teens are surrounded by that kind of environment, of course they don’t want to be associated with the virus, because it means people will just cut them off.”

As children born with HIV receive care and support, they are living longer, and today we are seeing the first generation of HIV positive teenagers transitioning to adulthood.

Together with partners like UNICEF and UKaid, the Government of Botswana is working to address the needs of HIV positive children and teens. The Government hopes to use the Teen Club model nationally.

When Katlego joined the teen club, she immediately took on a leadership role as a teen leader and and has become an advocate for young people living with HIV both locally and internationally.

UPSOUND: Katlego: “This is the challenge of our time and it is also the opportunity of our age.”
SOUNDBITE (English), Katlego Koboto, 18
“If there are any kids or adolescents out there who are living with HIV, and who haven’t met people who are living the same way that they are, I would just like to tell them that even if they are walking that distance alone, they will get there. They will reach their destination somehow.”

Transcripts / Production notes / Scripts

Yasmin Mussa, Fundraising and Marketing Project Assistant, Canadian volunteer:
“There’s this image associated with it, with being sick, and people are just so afraid of that, and so when teens are surrounded by that kind of environment, of course they don’t want to be associated with the virus, because it means people will just cut them off.”
34. Wide shot, Katlego walking through corridor to consultation room
35. Med shot, consultation room
36. Med shot, Katlego sitting for blood pressure and tempurature
37. Close up, Katlego getting blood pressure test
38. Close up, writing on medical chart
39. Med shot, teen club files
40. Wide shot, Katlego walking into hotel
41. Wide shot, Katlego speaking to Botswana Rotary Club about Teen Club
42. SOUND-UP (English) Katlego Koboto:
“This is the challenge of of our time, and it is also the opportunity of our age.”
43. Med shot, teens in room
44. Med shot, Ketlego talking to teen
45. Med shot, Katlego in room
46. Med shot, Katlego talking to teens
47. SOUNDBITE (English) Katlego Koboto, 18 years old, Peer Educator at Botswana Baylor Centre for Excellence Teen Club:
“If there are any kids or adolescents out there who are living with HIV, and who haven’t met people who are living the same way that they are, I’d just like to tell them that even if they are walking that distance alone, they will get there. They will reach their destination somehow.”
48. Wide shot, Katlego walking across the street
49. Close up, Katlego’s feet walking

STORYLINE:

SOUNDBITE (English) Katlego Koboto, 18 years old, Peer Educator at Botswana Baylor Centre for Excellence Teen Club:
“My name is Katlego Koboto, I am 18 years old, and I’m living with HIV. I first found out I was positive when I was 11 years old. At the time I was really really sick. And then I got hospitalised and then I got tested for HIV. And that’s when they found out it was through mother to child transmission.”

Katlego is one of over 600 teenagers currently receiving treatment for HIV at the Botswana-Baylor Centre of Excellence in Gabarone. Dealing with the usual peer pressures and challenges of being a teenager is hard enough. Being an HIV positive teenager can often lead to depression and non-adherence to treatment. This can have life-threatening consequences.

SOUNDBITE (English) Michael Tolle, Associate Director, Botswana-Baylor Centre of Excellence:
“The challenges for adolescents in maintaining good care are multiple. They center around psychosocial issues. Prominently depression, anxiety – things that make their adherence not optimal.

SOUNDBITE (English) Katlego Koboto, 18 years old, Peer Educator at Botswana Baylor Centre for Excellence Teen Club:
“At first I thought, I didn’t think that I was the only one, but I just felt alone. I felt like I was the only outcast who was living with HIV and had to take Meds. “

Katlego started coming to the Baylor Children’s Clinic in 2008. The facility is the first of its kind on the African continent providing state-of-the-art care and treatment for over 4,000 HIV-infected children, teens and families from around Botswana.

In order to address the unique needs of teenagers like Kathlego, Baylor, created the Teen Club – a peer support group intervention for HIV-positive adolescents between the ages of 13 and 19.

Meeting one Saturday per month, the teen clubs help HIV positive adolescents like Kathlego to manage their health and stick to their treatment regimes.

But the clubs do more than this; they also help these adolescents build positive relationships, improve their self-esteem, and help with the high levels of discrimination that make it hard for young people to disclose their status in Botswana.

SOUNDBITE (English) Yasmin Mussa, volunteer Botswana, Baylor Teen Club:
“There’s this image associated with it, with being sick, and people are just so afraid of that – and so when teens are surrounded by that kind of environment, of course they don’t want to be associated with the virus, because it means people will just cut them off.”

As children born with HIV receive care and support, they are living longer, and today we are seeing the first generation of HIV positive teenagers transitioning to adulthood.

Together with partners like UNICEF and UKaid, the Government of Botswana is working to address the needs of HIV positive children and teens. The Government hopes to use the Teen Club model nationally.

When Katlego joined the teen club, she immediately took on a leadership role as a teen leader and and has become an advocate for young people living with HIV both locally and internationally.

UPSOUND: Katlego: “This is the challenge of our time and it is also the opportunity of our age.”
SOUNDBITE (English), Katlego Koboto, 18
“If there are any kids or adolescents out there who are living with HIV, and who haven’t met people who are living the same way that they are, I would just like to tell them that even if they are walking that distance alone, they will get there. They will reach their destination somehow.”

Tags

• HIV AIDS teen
• mother-child infection
• medical

Directors:

• Muhamed Sacirbey UNTV-UNICEF

Producers:

• Susan Sacirbey