Background, Training Reports

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

1. Han Chinese village
2. Jingpo village
3. De’ang village

The Jingpo and De’ang are ethnic minority groups. Larger populations of both of these ethnic groups are found in Myanmar (Burma) more than in China. The Han Chinese have the highest living standards of the three groups, so there are less cultural roadblocks to development for them.

Photos of this village:

• Jingpo Village Training 03/09 Slideshow 1
• Jingpo Village Training 03/09 Slideshow 2

Jingpo Village

For the Jingpo, lack of education is a serious problem. Primary school is mandatory but less than 30% continue to finish high school. The number one method of HIV transmission is through unsafe sex. This both (a) shows a promise for curbing the spread of HIV through education, which is being made accessible to them and (b), it points out how fast HIV can spread without proper education and focus. Sexual intercourse at a young age is a very common thing in this village and in other ethnic minority villages, and amongst the poor and uneducated around the country.

The level of drug use in this village is reported to be low. In this area of Yunnan, drug use is the second highest mode of transmission of HIV (due to the readily available supply of heroin coming from Myanmar (Burma)).

In this county/area of Yunnan, ethnic minority groups and Han Chinese have always intermarried traditionally across border with people from Myanmar, but they are currently experiencing a much higher incidence of this phenomenon due to the on-going conflict in Myanmar, the extreme poverty facing most of Myanmar, and the recent success of the Chinese economy. A new focus on testing immigrants for HIV/AIDS in this county shows that a surprising number of immigrants from Myanmar into Yunnan are infected with HIV/AIDS. There is a connection between the on-going conflict in Myanmar and the spread of disease not only in that country, but in the whole region as well, particularly China, India, and Thailand.

This is a very poor area of Yunnan. The poverty is encouraging prostitution among women, and migrant labor amongst men (who either export HIV to another area, or bring it back from that other area to their village). Safe sex (condom or abstinence/or monogamy) is very seldom practiced.

Some Positive Aspects:

1. HIV numbers are fairly low.
2. Good family relationships exist, i.e. parents support their children positively and want the conditions of their children’s lives to improve. But there is a lack of understanding and resources to achieve this. We asked a number of parents what they wanted for their children. Typical answers included, “We want more education for our children, but (we) also need children in the fields and don’t know exactly how to get more education, or afford more education.”

Some Negative Aspects:

1. The villagers are not sufficiently concerned about the spread of HIV/AIDS yet. HIV/AIDS is not something they can see easily and thus they do not relate to it as a serious danger. People in the village die of other diseases that are much more visible, such as dysentery, malaria, cancer, or nutrition and other poverty-related diseases. So when someone dies of HIV/AIDS, it often is perceived as instigated by and set in the context of one of these other, more accepted or understood diseases. Thus, it is easy for the villagers to see HIV/AIDS-related deaths as normal and part of life in a poor, uneducated village.
2. Unsafe sex is the norm (not using condoms), and prostitution is not uncommon.