Regional Programs: Training

16. Kingston, Jamaica, 3 - 17 July 1993. CARIMAC/CAREC/Panos Regional Workshop: Responsible reporting on HIV/AIDS.

This course provided a great amount of background information on the disease, mainly from Caribbean sources. The course was directed at TV, radio and print, and therefore an important element was the review of the different appeals and different audiences of these various media. The workshop can be considered an overall success, despite several problems: fewer media managers participated than hoped; fewer print journalists were present than desired; and certain items were absent from the agenda. Also, although the workshop was held in Jamaica, and all media houses in Jamaica had been invited, only one Jamaican journalist attended. Poor local turnout may have been due to a number of factors, including a CARICOM heads of government meeting taking place in the Bahamas at the same time (one confirmed participant was pulled away by his newspaper to cover the event) and the homophobia that characterizes Jamaican society.

One of the workshop presenters, Jacobo Shifter of Instituto Latinoamericano de Prevención y Educación en Salud (ILPES) in Costa Rica, became very interested in replicating this workshop in Central America, and in working with Panos to do so. This workshop was implemented in February 1995.

The participants were brought together with a wide group of leading Caribbean HIV/AIDS resource persons: medical doctors, social scientists, public health workers and NGO representatives. During the five production days, CARIMAC lecturers served as production facilitators and provided guidance and feedback to participants on the technical aspects of their work. Because many of the resource persons (particularly the non-resident ones) were present during all of the presentations in the first three days of the course, they were able to actively participate throughout. While this lead to many interesting exchanges and debates, sometimes the discussions were dominated by the resource persons, who were engaged in their own on-going academic debates. At times the participants may have felt intimidated by these exchanges, and disinclined to ask questions. Also, due to information overload, the participants requested more time with the resource persons for absorption of presentations before moving on to new topics. A recommendation to the 1994 workshop was to minimize debate between resource persons, both through the vigilance of the facilitators, and requests made in advance to the resource persons. Many participants expressed a desire for the availability of the overseas resource persons during the production phase of the workshop.

The workshop began unconventional, with the viewing of participants' previous work in the area of HIV/AIDS. This allowed the participants and presenters to informally exchange ideas and thoughts about coverage of the issues, and provide specific feedback. Also on the first day, participants and presenters alike took part in a session designed to confront some of the myths surrounding HIV/AIDS and confront personal prejudices and biases. Participants also had discussions with the cast of a play about HIV/AIDS, entitled "One of Our Sons is Missing" that was being performed in Jamaica. Participants later saw the play and had an opportunity to speak with the cast afterwards as well.

A number of topics were missing from the programme agenda: eg. a discussion on the economic impacts of the pandemic; ethical and legal concerns, particularly issues related to the workplace. Prior to the workshop, conference organizers attempted to identify and invite an expert on the economic impacts of HIV/AIDS. Unfortunately, all of the individuals approached were unavailable. While the absence of a presentation did not detract from the workshop as a whole (many of the resource persons did make mention of the economic costs in their presentations) such a presentation would certainly have enhanced the content of the workshop.

Howard Hamilton, a member of the Jamaican National AIDS Committee and a prominent Jamaica lawyer, was invited to make a presentation about the lessons from the first AIDS-related libel suit in the Caribbean. Interestingly, many of the participants had questions related to their own liability as reporters and seemed quite interested in this topic.

Coincidentally, the course was held just after a three-week regional radio production course on "AIDS & Drugs", held in Philipsburg, St. Maarten, Netherlands Antilles, from 14 June - 2 July 1993, organized by Radio Nederland Training Centre (RNTC, Netherlands) and the Organization of American States (OAS).