TAG = "ethnic minority"

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Planning the night’s activities before our training session in a Jingpo village in Santaishan Township.

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Buying all the necessary supplies (mosquito coils, soap, toothbrushes and toothpaste, fruit and some candies) for our training session in a remote De’Ang village in Santaishan Township.

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Photos from this training:

Buying supplies for the training. Dinner planning session. Setting up for the training. Training Slideshow 1 Training Slideshow 2 Training Slideshow 3

Background on Santaishan Township

There are 3 villages in the Santaishan area. All three are farming villages:

Han Chinese village Jinghpaw village De’ang village

The Jinghpaw and De’ang are ethnic minority groups. Populations of both of these ethnic groups also live in Myanmar (Burma), in larger numbers than the groups found in China.

The Han Chinese have the highest living standards of the three groups, so there are less cultural roadblocks to development for them.

De’ang Village #2 Statistics

The De’ang ethnic group in Yunnan province, near the Myanmar border, is the smallest of ethnic minority groups in this part of China. Large numbers of De’ang can be found in Myanmar (Burma) but only small numbers of them remain in China. They have not mixed with the local Han Chinese population and way of life in modern China as well as other ethnic minority groups have.

There are 70 households in this De’ang village, totaling roughly 180 people, of which there are around 40 children (age 0-12 years). There are 2 parts to the village and we met in the lower part of the village; the upper part being about 1 km up the mountain road. This De’ang village seemed more wealthy than the previous village where we had done a training in March 2009. This village was very close to the highway and thus was able to grow more crops than just the sugarcane that was the monocrop in the previous village. This advantage allowed the villagers to most likely earn more money through farming than the previous De’ang village could. The village appeared to have more substantial structures, more power lines than the last, and also had the home and office of the village health worker ( a De’ang man who helped organized our trainings in the Santaishan area over the past few months).

There is no reported HIV in this village though the health worker admitted that their consensus isn’t fully complete, because some do not participate. People are encouraged to be tested for HIV/AIDS, and if a couple is married and they want a marriage certificate now, they must be tested in order to receive the certificate. However, some villagers who do not care about participating in the system outside village life don’t bother with the test. This is particularly true for some who are marrying into the village from outside, particularly Myanmar. The De’ang ethnic group exists on both sides of the China-Myanmar border and now because of the booming economy in China and the ever-deepening crisis brewing in Myanmar, it is becoming more common to marry into villages inside China. While the villagers are concerned, as well as the CDC and other groups in China, that there is a high risk of infection coming from Myanmar, mandatory testing for HIV/AIDS in the villages doesn’t really exist, unless the couple wants to hold a marriage certificate.

The village health worker and some of the elders expressed concern over immigrants from Myanmar, and concern for some of their women working as sex workers in the city of Mangshi. However, these numbers are still low, they say. They also mentioned that migrant labor was not very common for men from their village (it is common in some villages for men to work seasonally in other areas of the region. Migrant labor populations stand a higher risk of contracting HIV/AIDS.

The Training

Along with our usual prizes for participation that we bought locally (mosquito coils, soap, toothbrushes and toothpaste, fruit and some candies), we were equipped with enough mosquito nets for each of the households that participated in this training. Our friends at PSI (Population Services Index) provided us with very high quality nets for a fraction of their price. These villagers were able to benefit from this particularly great gift!

As usual we drove to the village area as a group, stopping for dinner to plan the night’s activities at a roadside local restaurant with great food. What was unusual was that there were 3 friends of mine participating in the workshop. They had a very nice time eating interesting foods, drinking some local spirits, and acquainting themselves with our local group.

We arrived at 8 and began setting up. There were more hands than usual so we were able to set up a really nice zone for the training with lots of decorations. It had rained that day, and with the rainy seasoning threatening an early start we a bit worried that we wouldn’t get much a of a turnout. When the villagers arrived around 9 pm, we introduced our group, and gave an introduction of the night’s activities. We were happy to find that over 50 of the 70 households showed up for training. Only the families the furthest away in the upper part of the village didn’t show because of the wet road conditions. The weather continued to co-operate.

We divided the participants in groups (men, women, and children respectively) and started. First we ask some questions about the village, then we introduce basic HIV prevention information and continue with more advanced information depending on the level of the group. We finish with a sort of competition where the various groups can showcase what they have learnt and they receive prizes for participation, and answering correctly.

The level of understanding in the village about HIV prevention and related health and social awareness was particularly high, especially among the youth. There were a few incorrect answers coming from the older men but not too many, and everyone laughed and instructed those with incorrect answers before we even got a chance to.

The training finished with the households being called up one at a time to receive their mosquito nets. It was a very warm experience meeting these people individually and handing them the nets. They really seemed very happy with the gift. Instructions and details were provided in Chinese, since for many, this would be their first experience of using a mosquito net. With the rainy season about to start I think they will really enjoy them right away.

Read the full training report Read about this De’Ang village in Santaishan Township

HIV/AIDS Training in a remote De’Ang village in Santaishan Township, Yunnan Province, China.

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Read the full training report Read about this De’Ang village in Santaishan Township

De’Ang villagers kick off our HIV/AIDS and health training with lots of local flavor. The training had to be held in the town center under a single lightbulb.

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Read the full training report Read about this De’Ang village in Santaishan Township

Photos from our HIV/AIDS prevention training session in a remote De’Ang village in Santaishan Township.

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