DARAGA, ALBAY—GentleMen Bicol started as an informal advocacy group in 2015 when a group of friends decided to spread awareness about HIV/AIDS and encourage Bicolanos to get tested.
The group has 47 active volunteers from all over the region, most of them in Albay, Camarines Sur and Catanduanes.
Since being registered at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, the group has helped more than 5,000 Bicolanos get screened.
Under the grant it received from the AIDS Healthcare Foundation in October 2021, the group has screened 1,522 individuals, 29 of whom tested reactive.
Council lobbying
“For us, those numbers are already high considering we had a pandemic and restrictions, and the mobilization of people until now is still limited,” said Ger Evan II, assistant project officer and youth coordinator of GentleMen Bicol.
Aside from testing individuals, the group has also provided relief goods to people living with human immunodeficiency virus, or PLHIV, especially to those who were having difficulty getting a checkup or gaining access to antiretroviral drugs.
Being immunocompromised, PLHIV are more prone to COVID-19 infection and suffering its severe effects.
At present, the group is focused on lobbying in the Sangguniang Kabataan or local youth councils all over Bicol for the implementation sexual health and reproductive rights programs.
In an Inquirer interview, Evan reported that through these lobbying as well as partnerships with municipal, city and provincial health offices, Gentlemen Bicol had already trained some 1,300 youths as peer-to-peer educators.
Engaging teachers
The group has also started training teachers for the implementation of the Comprehensive Sexuality Education program by the Department of Education. Seventy teachers in the cities of Tabaco and Legazpi have s far been taught proper approaches and key messaging in sex education, which mainly depend on the students’ age group.
“One thing that must be highlighted is the proper terminology to be used, especially when pertaining to sexual (body) parts,” Evan said. “Sometimes, the female reproductive organ is called a ‘flower.’ At a young age, that should be corrected.”
GentleMen Bicol is currently drawing up plans to have a training session for teachers in Masbate City and Sorsogon City.
For correction
It also encourages Twitter users who are active on “Alter Twitter,” a sexuality-oriented subculture within the platform, to get tested for HIV as soon as they can.
“It is very alarming that the age group of those testing positive for HIV is becoming younger and younger. There are studies in the Bicol region showing there are fewer and fewer youth who have proper knowledge about HIV, so that is our No. 1 motivation,” Evan said.
The group could use some more volunteers. While it encourages those who get tested to also join as volunteers, Evan said they usually hesitate because of the stereotyping and persisting social stigma.
“Sometimes, when people volunteer for organizations like ours they get tagged as people who had tested positive. We want to correct that thinking,” Evan said. INQ
