Teen's experience sends message to friends

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It's 11 a.m. and Angie, not her real name, sits in a corner of a downtown Winnipeg coffee shop appearing no different than the dozen young Aboriginal teens seated around her - alert, healthy looking and bursting with potential

But Angie is different.

Diagnosed as HIV positive six months ago while getting blood tests in hospital for a diabetes-related problem, the 19-year-old Cree teenager says her days are now spent wondering and worrying when she'll start to show signs of the AIDS virus.

"I didn't believe it when they told me I had it," she said. "It just didn't seem real, like they were talking about someone else."

Like so many, Angie says she didn't believe it could happen to her.

"I guess like many kids I just thought it was something that happened to homosexuals and drug users, so I never really thought about protected sex. Getting pregnant was the only thing I worried about, so I went on the pill, so I thought 'OK now I'm safe.'"

Like many of her peers, Angie says the safe-sex message was widely available in her community.

"We learned about it, sure, but it just didn't seem real to me or my friends."

Complicating matters for young, sexually active teens, says Angie, is the perception that protected sex shows a lack of trust in your partner or sends a message of sexual promiscuity to your partner.

Nodding their heads, the group of teens ranging in age from 14 to 20 years old who have joined Angie around the table seem to agree.

"Protected sex always seemed to me to be about prostitutes and drug users, not about normal, ordinary people," said 18-year-old Keen. "There's a lot of confusion out there among kids. Carrying rubbers around seems like a sign that you're one of those who does it all the time."

It's a problem health officials and educators admit is pronounced among many young people.

"That's the biggest challenge we face, to get the kids to understand that having protected sex is about being responsible, respecting yourself and your partner and its not about a lack of trust," said Manitoba Aboriginal Aids Task Force worker Winona Swampy.

"Educating our people and the youth in particular is about breaking the stereotypes and being able to talk about sex and the dangers of unprotected sexual activity in the open," she said.

Angie says the main obstacle to her accepting the facts about the risks of unprotected sex was primarily cultural.

"Where I am from and the way I was brought up is that you didn't talk about such things. I didn't know anything about my own body, about what a period was or anything. I was left like most Aboriginal kids are, just to find out by myself."

There's a wide degree of consensus on that assessment from the other teens.

"I don't think our parents or Elders were ever taught about their bodies either, and that is the way many kids are being raised too," said 17-year-old Jason. "I guess our parents never really had to worry about the same things as kids do today, so on one hand I can understand this I guess."

Equally troublesome, say the teens, is the fact that sexual promiscuity is on the rise among young people.

"Most of us have had more than two sexual partners already, and in the cities where there are a lot of parties and more opportunities to meet people, I'll probably have more partners," said 25-year-old Lisa. "That's just the way it is. Our boyfriends leave us or go back to the rez for a while or end up in detention and nature just takes over."

What the teens agree on, however, is that knowing one of their own friends has contracted the virus changes their own outlook on life.

"When Angie told us, we didn't believe her, but when we saw the look in her eyes we knew it was real," said Jason.

For Angie, the support of her small group of friends means the world to her.

"It gives me hope that I can fight this thing, maybe even beat it, but I wanted to tell them because they were all like me thinking it couldn't happen," she said.

All the teens agree thaeducation on HIV/AIDS nd safe sex has to be intensified in the Aboriginal communities.

"The older people have to take this seriously too and get past their shyness of not wanting to talk about sex," said Keen. "The lives of their children are going to depend on this. Angie is really brave to have trusted us enough to tell us, but it shouldn't have to take something like this to get people to change their attitudes. Maybe we can all do our part now."

For Angie the battle is still ahead. But in her own small way she has already contributed to changing attitudes among some of her peers.

"I don't want any more kids to find out the hard way like I did, that's all there is to it. I care about my friends and love them. I just want them to be careful for themselves and for others."