THE USE OF LITERARY WORKS AS A MEDIUM OF PROMOTION HIV AWARENESS: A STUDY OF HOPE HARVESTER BY VICTOR DUGGA

CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

1.1       Introduction

Literary works are imaginative or creative writing which serve as medium of communication . It can be piece of writing, written material, that are the works of a writer, anything expressed in letters of alphabet especially when considered from the point of view of style and effect.Havelock(15).

 Literary works could be fictional or a depiction real life situation  literary often meant to project the rural and urban life of people. Literary works can be inform of novels,poetry and plays . The use of literary works in order to make critique of how to promote HIV AWARENESS in the reference to a work of art Hope Harvesters.The writer is an artist.It is an intellectual activity involving skills which enable us to determine among written works,the grain from the chaff so as to make reasoned judgment upon literary works based on some well define criteria according to Ahmed(65).It is an exercise in critical judgment which are to a large extent,highly subjective relying on the personal responses of the critic as a reader(65)

T.A Richards sees criticism as part of activity in literary works as the endeavour to discriminate between experiences and to evaluate them (64).

The world is in great danger as captured in the play “Hope Harvesters” there has never been a time in history that the world has faced the danger of faces today, the international community is watching as HIV/AIDS pandemic tightens its grip on the world especially in Africa.

Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and the resultant Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) remain foremost global health and development challenges. The numbers of people living with HIV worldwide has continued to grow reaching an estimated 33.4 million in 2008 (UNADS, 2009). Globally it is estimated that 2.7 million AIDS related deaths occurred in 2008.

HIV/AIDS was discovered in about 1981 and the first case in Nigeria was discovered in 1986, in a 13year old girl, since then the increasing trend of transmission and numerous deaths have been attributed to the ravaging disease. The denial about the existence of HIV/AIDS did not help matters, his affected families, communities, state, the country and the global society at large. The reality has become true that it is a development and not only a health problem, hence the multi sectoral spread and mitigated of the impact of the disease.

HIV/AIDS has been found to attract mostly youths and woman in the reproductive and productive age group day in, day out. Many of the youths has gone for untimely deaths, this not with standing, the challenge posed by HIV remains phenomenal; for every 2 new persons place on anti-retroviral 5 new individuals get infected.

Despite significant gains achieved through improved access to ARVS the epidemic in sub-saharan African continues to outpace the response. To reverse this trend, there is a need to elevate the priority given to HIV prevention strategies with actual needs. This will contribute to greater success in preventing new HIV. Infections which is critical to active Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 6 “to halt and reverse the spread of HIV by 2015” with potential to contribute to the achievement of other MDGs and other national development goals.

Nigeria HIV prevalence is estimated at 3.6% based on a general population survey (EMOH, 2007). The HIV prevalence among pregnant woman (antenatal care sentinel survey) was 4.6% (EMOH, 2008) which indicate an improvement from 5.8% in 2001. Current estimate of people with HIV in Nigeria is 2.98 million implying that over 95% Nigerians are infected.

This scenario thus underscores the need for laying premium on HIV prevention efforts, while concomitantly addressing the challenges of treatment needs for those infected and mitigating other impact of infection has been rightly emphasized by the country’s National policy thrust as reflected in the National policy thrusts as reflected in the revised National HIV/AIDS policy (Oct. 2009) the National strategic frame work (2010-2015) (NSF 11) and the National strategic plan(2010-2015).Thus the need to operationalised  this priority placed on HIV prevention in these research work. Through the provision of a National guide on HIV prevention programming in order to ensure a co-ordinated, well resourced effective and efficient response as part of awareness on the danger of HIV.