LIFE SKILLS EDUCATION TOOLKIT FOR ORPHANS AND VULNERABLE CHILDREN IN INDIA• 11
Review- What was the difference in breathing with and without straws?
- Would a reduced ability to breathe affect their life, such as in playing, working, living?
Linking Learning With Life
Ask the children to observe people who smoke and their physical problems. Do they cough? Do they
have trouble breathing? How do they think young people can be helped to not smoke? Observe their
fingers and teeth. If possible, ask the children to form groups of three to interview a smoker and a non-
smoker. Or invite a young person who gave up smoking to talk to the children in the next session.Experience from the field
Adaptation: A burning agarbatti (incense stick) can be held against a wall. The wall will turn a little black.
If you hold the agarbatti near the wall for a longer period of time or repeat the action, the wall will get a
darker and deeper mark. The facilitator explains that this is similar to the impact on lungs while smoking.ACTIVITY TWO
IDU and Risk: Pass the Needle
Activity three from session three, which comes later, may also be used as an additional activity.- Explain that drugs can be injected into a vein. HIV transmission is linked to IDU and if there are
more IDUs, the chances of acquiring HIV are higher since getting infected from sharing needles
is also likely to increase. Remind the children that if a person is infected from injection drug
use, s/he can pass on HIV through sexual intercourse or blood donation (if the donated blood is
not tested) because the user carries the virus in his/her body. - Pour water into two cups. In one cup add a drop of red color and stir. The cup should now have
red colored water. Place a dropper inside this cup. Tell the children that the cup represents a
person living with HIV and the dropper is the syringe used for injecting drugs. Squeeze the
dropper so that some red liquid rises in it. Squirt it back into the same cup making sure that a
drop or so of the red liquid remains in the dropper. Inform the group that the person living with
HIV has just injected a drug into the vein.
Now the person living with HIV is going to share the syringe with someone who does not carry
the virus. Place the dropper in the other cup of clear water and release the drop of red color.
The water should become pink. Inform the children that the infected blood has now made the
HIV- person into a Person Living with HIV/AIDS. - Ask the children if they know how the HIV virus spreads from injecting drugs. Explain that it is a
misconception that injecting drugs straight into the muscle, or directly into a vein or in the skin
makes it safer. Mention that only a very small amount of blood is needed to infect because it
enters straight into the body. A small drop of blood can contain a lot of HIV.