Fighting AIDS in Honduras
Dacia Ramirez '96E
By Laurel Harper
Twice a week, Dacia Ramirez leaves her office in the heart of San Pedro Sula, Honduras' second largest city, for a round of fieldwork--literally.
Some days she visits banana farms, other days it's a textile factory. But no matter where she goes, she times her arrival during the laborers' mid-day meal to ensure that as many hear her message as possible.
Her mission: Educate them about HIV, a disease that infects an estimated 1.9 percent of the Honduran population, according to the World Bank. That statistic places Honduras second among Central american countries for incidents of HIV--and makes it a major issue for health-care workers there such as Ramirez.
Since 2002 Ramirez has worked with CARE International as a gerente alcombatsida--a manager of the alliance to combat AIDS. She supervises health-care providers in Honduras' small villages and helps recruit and train volunteers to educate their neighbors about HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.
 Dacia Ramirez |
Health care wasn't among Ramirez' job aspirations when she transferred to U of L from Honduras' National Teachers College in 1994. Instead, after earning her bachelor's degree in special education, Ramirez planned to return home and teach the disabled. "I'm teaching," she noted during a recent visit back to Louisville, "but it's not in schools. Instead, I go to textile factories and farms to get the word out about HIV. Lots of young people here are infected. We try to education them about abstinence, condoms and fidelity, but they often don't understand the need."
What makes her work especially tough is the disturbing knowledge that there is little they can do for those already infected. This is really brought home when patients come in each month for the food CARE distributes. "Maybe we can give food, but it's not the therapy they really need because we don't have the money to provide it," she explained. "It's hard enough knowing that adults are infected and there's little you can do to help, but even worse when you see their children have HIV, too.
Rea Alsup, a retired professor from U of L's College of Education and Human Development, was associate director of the university's international center when it was one of only 12 nationwide asked to participate in a U.S. Information Agency initiative. The initiative funded several grants that brought students from Central America to the U.S. to study.
From 1987 to 1998 (a year later the USIA became part of the State Department and the program was discontinued) more than 100 Latin American students attended U of L as a result. Ramirez was among them.
"I'm thrilled when my students come back and have had very exciting careers as Dacia has had," Alsup said. He keeps in touch, mainly via e-mail, and continues to encourage them from afar. That's what prompted Ramirez to seek out her former professor when she came to the United States for a visit last fall.
Currently she is trying to organize an association of Honduran students who participated in the USIA program. "Maybe we can even get the program started again," Ramirez said, as Alsup looked on with pride. "We want to help others now that we've been helped." She added that her time at U of L definitely benefited her career, even if it did take an unexpected turn.
"In class they taught us that we have a responsibility to work with people and show them humanity. They said we should try to change behaviors so people take responsibility for their own bodies, and we should also try to teach them self-esteem," she said. "The professors here gave me the support to have this strong feeling and take it back to my country."
For more information on CARE Honduras visit: www.carehonduras.org/.
