Botswana teens find refuge at club

It’s tough enough being a teenager without the added burden of living with HIV, and keeping it hidden from friends and classmates. Many get isolated and depressed at having to lead double lives - lots of positive teenagers can't even tell their best friend about their status because they fear they’ll tell others, and they'll never be able to go back to school. For Katlego Lally*, meeting other teenagers like her was life changing. Katlego, 17 started going to Teen Club a club for HIV-positive teenagers in Botswana, last year. "I was just living in a dark tunnel, waiting for the day I would die," she said. "The doctor I was seeing told me about Teen Club and I saw a whole new world, “ she told the United Nations news service, IRIN. “I thought it was just me, but I saw a whole lot of excited and happy teenagers."

Botswana has one of the highest adult rates of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) disease in the world. So Teen Club, run by the Baylor Children's Clinic Centre of Excellence, in the capital, Gaborne, is a ray of light for children who have the disease. The first Teen Club started in Gaborne in 2005 with just 23 teenagers, but now has more than 400; that number is expected to reach above 1,000 by 2012, and five satellite clubs have launched in other parts of the country. Clinic staff and some of the older teenagers act as "teen leaders," and run monthly events at the clubs, offering support to the vast majority of members who have never told anyone their status besides their carers. Just referring these teenagers to adult clinics could massively set back the gains the southern African country has made in combating HIV, says Ed Pettitt, coordinator of the Teen Club programme."Adolescence, as a period of development, has the highest risk for therapeutic failure - not just for ARVs, but any medication for a chronic illness," he said. "I call it the 'inconvenient truth' of paediatric HIV - it's great that you can put children on ARVs, but you have to realize that one day they're going to grow up and become teenagers, and all the challenges and headaches that come with adolescence are going to impact on their behaviours."

Katlego was born in 1992 when there was no prevention of mother-to-child transmission. She got HIV from her mother. "I remember in 2007,” she said. “I was falling sick often and my exams were about to come, so I was a bit down, always just kicking myself - 'Why? Why me? What have I done?' - I was just living in a dark tunnel, waiting for the day I would die. "Then last year I was referred to Baylor [Children's Clinic] and that's when I think my life changed. "I've made a lot of friends - they're like my family. Everyone is open with each other, because when you're in the same situation you understand each other.

*Not her real name

By Hayley Jarvis for SOS Children