Guyanese HIV/AIDS awareness activist Mr. Lindon Swayving believes one of the main tools used against HIV is education. He said “if that process is not sustained it is not going to help.” He added that education seeks to empower and if not consistently done it would fail. Host of a new radio program, The Review, Swayving said his program looks at what was accomplished in the field of HIV, as well as what has not been done. He anticipated that the program would meet the educational needs “in the hope of behavior change.”

Mr. Lindon Swaying

The Review, aired on Radio Anguilla, is aimed at further increasing awareness and sensitivity to HIV and AIDS. Swayving describes himself as a naturally compassionate individual who was influenced by his church environment. He said he loved life and was usually appreciative of meeting and communicating with people.

The host admitted that behavior change would not be easy as it was “not something that happens overnight because what people do is what they have been cultured to do, and to unlearn is not an easy process.” He stressed, however, that the program would be a comprehensive approach because “you don’t get all the details from advertisements [and] some programs that will just share with you some of the basics. We are going to go into areas that are generally untouched.”

Mr. Swayving, who has been in Anguilla for a year since his wife took up an appointment with the Health Authority of Anguilla as a pharmacist, counseled persons in Guyana on HIV/AIDS. He stated that his interest in the issue stemmed from friends and extended family members whom he saw became infected and eventually died. He said it drove home that he had a responsibility to do something about it in the form of education and awareness to help people. He pursued an HIV/AIDS program then lectured mainly student nurses. He opined that it should be mandatory for people in health to “pursue some kind of program in HIV because time and again they have to sort of be a part of the management and therapeutic process of people who are infected.”

With regards to a subculture of active ‘HIV catchers’ and ‘gift givers,’ Swayving doubted if there were “very many people who walked into danger knowing that…this is what is going to befall them.” He said some people thought they were beyond the reaches of HIV/AIDS and some thought it was only some individuals who could contract HIV/AIDS. He added that those beliefs were myths and false concepts. “HIV/AIDS is not going to discriminate,” he commented. “Anybody can contract the virus. In the distant past HIV/AIDS was more or less in the circle of homosexuals and we have discovered today that…there are more incidences among normal relationships, a man and a woman, where the HIV/AIDS is very prevalent.”

Swayving pointed out that people who said they wanted the virus had not considered “how enormous this thing can be, how difficult it is to cope with. But there is a danger today because…antiretroviral therapy is working and helping people to live longer…there is a dangerous tendency to not be mindful anymore about contracting the virus.” He warned that a 2006-2007 United Nations report said only 37% of people who needed antiretroviral drugs were able to access them. He added that the drugs may not necessarily work with a particular individual.

Swayving recognized that there were many theories on the origin of HIV/AIDS. He considered that the world was warned by doctors that it was possible for something worse than other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) to result because people were not careful about their sexual activities. He opined it was reasonable to think that HIV/AIDS might have developed because of “sexual excesses.” And he did not think HIV/AIDS was developed in a laboratory. He said this was just the worst of [the] STDs “and maybe the worst is yet to come.”

Swayving hoped that each individual would take responsibility for his or her own actions regardless of government programs.

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