Jaipur, IIHMR and FXB

June 11, 2007
We've settled into our new institute and had our first lecture by Dr. Goyal on HIV/AIDS in Southeast Asia. While we're hearing different figures from different people in the field, since there is no official national HIV/AIDS registry, all statistics are based on estimates. The complete picture that emerges is that HIV in India is transmitted through high risk behavior in the general heterosexual population.
In the afternoon we went to visit an NGO called FXB fxb.org, the NGO was started by Countess Albina du Boisrouvray of France after her son passed away in Mali and currently operates in 17 countries to provide a voice for AIDS orphans and other volnerable children, advocating for their rights and support.


With Dr. Gupta at FXB

Dr. Gupta, the director of the FXB center in Jaipur was an extremely passionate and energenic person and we enjoyed meeting him and his staff. They are currently running four projects, including an HIV awareness program at barber shops, which educates barbers in disseminating HIV and safe sex messages to their clients as well as providing free condoms. They are currently working with 254 barber shops and have distributed 40,000 condoms in the last 2.5 years.
The second project is installing condom vending machines that Dr. Gupta and his team have designed themselves at petrol (gas)stations. This project is still in its infancy because it's difficult to get permission from the petrol company owners, but it is an innovative idea as are most of the projects run by FXB Jaipur.
The third project is a school sex education program, however, they are not free to speak about condoms and safe sex due to conservative political pressure similiar to the U.S. The last and possibly the most touching project he told us about has to do with Street Children which would fall under the vulnerable children category. They do outreach to these kids, who are mostly runaways or AIDS orphans who often live in train stations or on the street and collect empty water bottles off the trains as the trains pull into the station. They are referred to as rag children. Dr. Gupta's team provides them with soap and towels, which they get from unused hotel soaps that you and I leave behind. They also have a health camp for the kids, where they feed them and try to educate them. Currently they have 500 registered children.