User:Shellone/Sophia and Its Vulnerability to HIV/AIDS

Sophia is one of the largest squatting settlements established in the early 90’s located in Georgetown, Guyana to be converted into a housing scheme. It is sub divided into nine quadrants or 'fields' that together contain approximately 4700 house lots, including reserved sites for play ground and other community projects. Sophia has about 5000 households with an estimated population of 25000; men and women comprise 47 and 52 percent respectively, and children are estimated at 48 percent.

Over the years, the Government of Guyana provided infrastructural development for this community; including paved roads, one community center, one health center, one police station and five schools. These developments have without doubt improved the living conditions of the people in Sophia. However, there are still limited electricity supply and other basic goods such as potable water for households, a community-wide sewage system and regulated sanitation. Sophia has high illiteracy and unemployment rates. Further, there is no private sector presence to which can readily provide job opportunities except for small neighbourhood businesses/shops; especially for the young adults in Sophia this is a critical issue. Sophia is also characterized by female-headed households, mostly single parents with more than two children, low income earnings, poor parental skills and fragile family structures, low-educational levels, and abject poverty. Among the youth population, early sexual initiation has predisposed them to early pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (STIs), such as HIV/AIDS. The social and economic worries of Sophia are all intrinsically interrelated with poverty and underemployment; the entire Sophia community is vulnerable to sexually transmitted diseases and the HIV/AIDS pandemic. For example, when a woman does not have an incoming generating job to provide basic goods for her family, more often than not her sexual and reproductive rights are threatened. The woman depends on her relationship with her husband, her lover or multiple partners for her daily survival. Many of these women do not have the bargaining power to have their sexual partners wear condoms and as a result they practice unsafe sex; which is proven to be one of the main contributors to the high incidence and prevalence of HIV/AIDS.

Guyana being one of the few Caribbean countries whose HIV/AIDS epidemic has spread beyond specific high-risk groups into the general population, has also contributed to the underdevelopment in the Sophia community. After Haiti, Guyana has the highest AIDS prevalence in the region; according to UNAIDS the adult prevalence rate of HIV is 2.4%. However, the Government of Guyana National HIV/AIDS Programme NAPS in collaboration with NGOs and International Organisations have begun work in communities in Guyana, to address the social issues that contribute to the spread of HIV/AIDS which stymies development in many communities like Sophia.

(1) http://www.geonames.org/3375915/Sophia.html (2) http://www.gina.gov.gy/archieve/features/f040903.html (3) http://www.csih.org/en/projects/guyana/AIDS.html