Chiang Mai 2001: A Key Correspondent's Report
The 5th Home and Community Care Conference for People with HIV/AIDS (5HCC) was held in the Lotus Hotel of Chiang Mai, Thailand from the 17th to the 20th December 2001. It started for me with the Pre-Conference Briefing Workshop for the Key Correspondents (KCs). There were about nineteen Key Correspondents from all corners of the globe of whom I was one.
After registration and the customary round of self-introductions, Colleen Jackson, Project Manager of Health and Development Networks (HDN), Tim France, the Director of HDN and Dr. Wiwat, Chair Person of the Proceedings and Reporting Sub Committee informed the small gathering that the KC team had been brought together to be the 'eyes and ears' for the 2400 Internet members who would take part in the pre and post conference structured e-mail discussion. This project called the Insight Initiative thus helped to extend the conference virtually beyond the halls of Lotus Hotel. The Conference Rapporteur team and the HDN KCs together formed the 'KC-RAPP Team'.
The role of a KC, we were told, was not just plain reporting. KCs were to be critical. While highlighting innovative projects or interesting issues that came out in a session, KCs should be able to point out what was missed by the speaker or what better answer to a query from the audience could have been given. We were advised that as KCs we should also be able to think forward about the program's implications and applications and foresee possible practical difficulties that might arise. All this made us feel that we belonged to a rather rare species of HIV/AIDS experts within the genus of journalists!
After Lunch, the team was broken up into four, each covering one track of the Conference. A Track Coordinator was in charge of five KCs. I was in Track A, which covered Treatment, Care and Support. Dr. Andrew S. Furber from Nepal was the Coordinator. After about an hour, each and every session was allotted to a KC, so much so that all KCs had two sessions every day to cover. The word length was 200 to 500 words for a short article, and 700 to 1000 for a long one. The editorial team later integrated our articles with other materials or reports of the KC-RAPP Team, as a result the final piece, to our surprise, appeared totally different from the original version!
The following day after the Morning Briefing the tasks were to get ten delegate interviews and cover the opening ceremony. My first delegate was Ines Vivian Domingo, a Communications and Training specialist from the Philippines. She was concerned about the relative lack of knowledge and experience about Care in Burma where she has worked two years in the field of HIV/AIDS with an International NGO known as, "World Concern". She had visited the "Clear Skies Project" under the Empowering Visit Program and was thrilled by the story of how a Couple could organize a holistic care program for People With HIV/AIDS (PWHAs), since the last ten years in Thailand.
In conversation, Gautam K Ghosh, the Project Director of the Health Program Hospital in Kolkota, stated that after having attended the UN General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS (UNGASS), he felt that the Global Health Fund had a serious bottleneck that prevented NGO participation.
"To solve the problem, the NGOs should pursue with the various Government Functionaries and insist on transparency in its implementation", he opined.
"The enigma of the AIDS epidemic caught me during the seven years of surveying communicable diseases in Thailand. Then I decided to shift my focus from surveillance to intervention. Now I want to learn more about Community Care from the Empowering Visits Program and also by meeting friends and exchanging notes with them", said Dr. Kitti Pong, who is the Government Epidemiologist at the Provincial Health Office of Naraathiwat Province in the southern Thailand, which is close to the Malay border.
Pre-lunch I finished eight interviews and after a quick late meal, I headed straight to the Kad Theatre of the Lotus Hotel for the Opening Ceremony, which was scheduled at 16:00 hrs. Before the start I could complete my quota of two more interviews! Her Royal Highness Princess Soamsawali inaugurated the Conference after the Welcome Speech by Dr. Taksin Shinawatra, Prime Minister and Chairman of the National AIDS Committee. This was followed by speeches from the Representatives of Persons Living with HIV/AIDS There was a good song of solidarity expressing the "power of humanity" - the theme of the conference. Its uniqueness was that in the same tune short stanzas were sung alternatively in Thai and English, so that most of the audience was singing along in a short time! A musical review on AIDS was next and the program ended with the Inauguration of the Exhibition by Her Royal Highness Princess Soamsawali. All the while I had the pleasure of filming all these with my digital movie camera.
After the evening briefing, we were fast getting down our thoughts of the day, interviews and photographs into a mosaic on electronic documents. By and by they were filed away by KCs to the general pool from which the Care Conference Newspaper and HDN e-forum and web site would be using. In the midst of work we had no thoughts of attending the Reception to the Princess on the ground floor and this pattern followed for the Cultural night, Farewell Dinner and most of the festivities to follow. It was a long day before I filed all my reports and midnight by the time I hit the bed.
Early next morn at the Daily briefing I was pleasantly taken aback to see a photo of Dr. Kitti Pong and myself dominate the back cover page of the Care Newspaper. Two of my eight interviews submitted were among the ten that saw the light of day! A photograph of Her Royal Highness snapped by me smiled beside the translated text of her inaugural speech in the center page! What more did I want! I wanted to thank Nadine, Editor of Care, but instead rushed to the Opening Plenary session. Same seat, at the Kad theatre and I was straightaway typing into the Laptop, salient points of the Plenary session.
Milly Katana of GNP+, Uganda, speaking on, "Expectations of Persons living with HIV/AIDS towards care and support", highlighted the need for dovetailing the components of the care and support program to what were the actual needs of PWHAs accessing these programs. Later at the press briefing Milly was of the view that if people with HIV came out then it helped to dispel the myth about HIV. Seeing PWHAs people would help realize that "HIV is real", she said.
Susan Paxton from APN+ who was also a Key speaker at the Plenary came around to me after the Press briefing and said how she came to know about ISHIMA's Web pages, when she was working with Anne Mitchell, Chairperson of the Skill Building Session of the 5th ICAAP. Tim France wanted to have a tête-à-tête about the web pages and scope of networking and asked me to catch up with him when we both had the time. Tim also suggested to me to meet Stu Flavell of GNP+, who is also on ISHIMA's mailing list. Two days later I met Stu Flavell during Breakfast and he was all appreciation of the work that I do to spread awareness through IT. I was delighted to know that my web pages were taking me to more places than I could possibly go to! However, I never got to chat with Tim, though we worked in HK5-5 together, even after the conference was over!
I covered the session on, "Assessing the needs of PHAs" in which Promboon Panitchpakdi, Pongphan Raweang, Amy Andrews and Nongluck Suwisith were the speakers and Chaiyos Kunanusont, the moderator. Phongpan Raweang, of Thailand, broke the Language Barrier by articulating her presentation in slow and deliberate English reading out from Thai transliteration, for which she received accolades from the patient and appreciative audience.
On 19th December, also the daily briefing had its rewards as I saw photos and parts of my write up on Milly Katana appear in the Care Conference Newspaper. The same day the Symposium on Information Networks was held. Tim France in a casual manner introduced us to the audience and the session rolled on with each of us spelling out how our networks had helped build a meaningful response to HIV/AIDS.
The next session titled, "Improving Counseling facilities and stress Management for carers" provided a blue print for Improved facilities from the oldest Counselling Clinic in Asia, namely, 'The Anonymous Clinic'.
Somchai Phromsombut talked on how to improve facilities for VCT. Prof. Jean Barry listed the common pitfalls of VCT and gave tips on Stress Management for Caregivers. Somsiri Tantipaibulvut provided a few methods of Improvement. There being no time for questions because of the speakers prolonged discourses the session ended rather abruptly.
Jon Ungpakon of ACCESS, Thailand, set the right tone for the speakers to toe when he opened the "Enabling access to care and treatment" session with the remark that, "Lack of access is a human rights issue, more complex as countries where they can afford ARV, access still remains problematic as they are having political constraints". Nicholas Durier of MSF, Thailand,
took up the cue with his presentation, "A project of HAART in Thailand".
Ronny Waikhom, of the CARE Foundation, India, presented the scenario in the high prevalence state of Manipur with his presentation entitled, "Accessibility of Affordable ARV/OI Medicines and Treatment to enhance Greater Involvement of PHAs". Tedd Ellerbrock of CDC, from the US, followed up with his study on the, "Effect of an Intervention to Improve adherence to HAART on Viral Load". Though the last speaker Isah Harris did not turn up, the question and answer session proved interesting and went on past the usual close up times so that I missed half my evening briefing when I eventually got back to HK5-5.
On the last day, I had to cover, "End of Life Issues - dealing with pain" as Karen Michaels the KC for it has reported that she would not be available. When I asked Dr. Bernard J. Lapointe of Canada, in a pre-presentation Interview what he would like to be highlighted, his first words were: "Pain is a small Death. A patient in pain is actually dead to the world. He or she cannot live life to the fullest. Relieving pain is giving back Life. Therefore access to pain relief medication is as important as access to ARV."
The rest of the morning was spent on finishing the previous afternoon's double session write up. An hour after Lunch, the whole KC team went to the Kad Theatre for the Rapporteur Session. David Wilson, Anthony Pramularatna and Paul Toh presented their summaries of the four Conference tracks.
Immediately after this was the closing ceremony. There was the usual display of folk art and dances, interspersed by short speeches from the Chairs of the 5th and 6th HCC. At last all the Key Organizers were called up to the stage for the final round of applause. I could spot Colleen, Subidita, Anthony, and Dr. Wiwat in the long line. That night all the KCs had a long dinner at a heritage hotel in Chiang Mai, watching a variety of folk dances.
Foot loose we were, joining in the last dance. It made up for all the partying that we missed!
The next day during the feedback Interview with Colleen, I told her that I had not known before that I could work so long and hard, write and deliver quality reports against deadlines and enjoy the friendly spirit of a cohesive team. No. doubt, finding out the untapped potential within oneself had been a novel learning experience, so much so that I would love to be a KC once more!
