State of Denial

Today we started to watch the film State of Denial, a documentary filmed in South Africa that chronicles the lives of several people living with HIV as well as those individuals who care for them and the policy makers who deny the link between HIV and AIDS.

Film Synopsis:

"South Africa was the country that was supposed to show the rest of Africa the way. With the triumph of the anti-Apartheid struggle, and with the advantages of resources, infrastructure, and popular government, South Africa was best positioned to overcome the continent's triple plagues of impoverishment, civil war, and despotic rule. Then came HIV/AIDS.

As powerfully revealed in "State of Denial," many high ranking members in the popularly elected government — sincere heirs to Nelson Mandela — don't believe the HIV virus causes AIDS. This single decision to doubt the link has turned a crisis into a catastrophe. With five million people infected and nearly two thousand new infections occurring daily, South Africa has the highest number of people living with HIV in the world." Read the rest here.

While student watched the film they completed a graphic organizer to help them follow the movie. At the end of class students completed a 3-2-1 (3 things you learned, 2 things you want to learn more about and 1 thing you have a question about).

Here are some of the things students learned:

* Women sold themselves for money and as a result contract HIV.
* There are 2000 new HIV infections each day in South Africa
* HIV is spreading rapidly
* Antiretroviral drugs cost 10x more in South Africa than generic drugs elsewhere in the world.
* People don't die of AIDS they die of opportunistic infections
* What Apartheid was.
* The previous President of South Africa, Thado Mbeki did not believe in a connection between HIV and AIDS.
* HIV and AIDS are not the same thing.