The Asian Development Bank is providing support to an 18-month project to be implemented jointly by UNESCO Bangkok and the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO). The project aims to reduce vulnerability to HIV in cross-border areas in China (Yunnan Province), Lao PDR, Thailand, Cambodia and Viet Nam. The total project budget is 1.8 million US$.

SEAMEO will develop teaching and learning materials and train teachers in border areas across the region to provide in-school preventive education to students. UNESCO’s activities in this project run across three UNESCO sectors: the Culture Unit, Information and Publication Services Unit and the AIDS Unit.

The UNESCO Culture Unit aims to extend an existing project to reach ethnic minorities in Lao PDR, Thailand and China (Yunnan Province) with messages about HIV prevention, drug prevention and trafficking awareness. These messages will be integrated into soap operas that will be broadcast as radio programmes and will be available on audio tapes for use by community projects or educators. Preliminary work is being planned in order to include ethnic minorities in Viet Nam at a later stage. In addition, the UNESCO Culture unit will conduct research on how to reinforce messages broadcast by radio with on-the-ground activities with the target audience, including mobile cross-border populations.

UNESCO’s Culture Unit will also continue working on applying Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to discover spatial trends related to HIV/AIDS and social development in cross-border areas. Data derived from GIS will be useful for project monitoring and strategizing.

As part of the project, UNESCO’s Information and Publication Services section (IPS) will develop a Clearing House, collecting and making available on-line and off-line studies, materials and reports dealing with HIV/AIDS and ethnic minorities in the area.

The recently established UNESCO HIV/AIDS Unit will assist in inter-sectoral and interagency collaboration and information sharing.

Source: http://www.unescobkk.org/news/projects/2003/03ADB.htm