Noticias

In the public forum "Towards an Education based on Human Rights" held on the 5th of December at the Cultural Center “El Cabildo”, Adolfo Ruiz, Youth Program Coordinator of SOMOSGAY made the presentation of the results of the surveys that were applied to health and education personnel on HIV and LGBT rights in general, in the framework of the project "Araroky Tava", supported by the European Union. This forum was launched by the Commission of Education and Culture of the National Congress, chaired by Deputy Karina Rodriguez.

This survey explored and analyzed the level knowledge, attitudes and practices related to HIV and LGBT issues of 132 health and education workers. A similar survey was also applied to the general population during the month of November 2013, with a total of 555 people from over 30 cities of the Central Department and cities of the interior of Paraguay who responded to such questions.

Among the results from the general population, the responses indicated that 79% of them "would agree on having an LGBT person teaching their children". To the question "if you had an LGBT son or daughter, would you accept him/her?", 511 people (92%) responded positively. When asked whether or not they would accept a friend or co-worker openly living with HIV, 526 answered “yes”, constituting a 95% of the respondents. These results show a positive perception from our society, and it is important to note that 75% of the respondents (417 people) are between 18-29 years.

The findings from surveys applied to health and education workers indicated that 18 professionals (14%) responded “yes” to the question "is homosexuality a disease?'', while 103 (78%) said “no”. 64 health workers (48%) answered “yes” to the question "do you apply the same standards of biosecurity with a person living with HIV?". 52 teachers (39%) responded “yes” to the question "would you accept and openly LGBT student and treat him/her equally?", while only 4 (3%) said that they wouldn’t. These results reflect outdated information on issues related to HIV and LGBT in the areas of health and education.

Based on these results, SOMOSGAY conducts capacity-building trainings in different spaces, aimed at health professionals, teachers and students, providing informational materials such as "The Paraguayan LGBT Manual", to provide them with knowledge-transfer. We thank the deputy Karina Rodriguez for the space at the Forum, made possible by her committee in the framework of the campaign "7% for Education: Let’s duplicate our Investment," which seeks to improve the budgetary investment in education given that, in all the countries of the region, Paraguay has the least investment in the area.