Driving home the point in Senegal: AIDS kills

Senegalese taxi driver Daouda Diokh explains to fellow transport workers how the "capote", an informal term for a condom, can save their lives as part of a USAID-financed HIV/AIDS awareness program. Photo: R. Nyberg, USAID

Bad news travels fast. But bad blood can travel even faster. That’s why USAID and Senegal’s National AIDS Control Program have stepped in quickly to help halt the spread of HIV among high risk and vulnerable groups. Young men and women working in and around the transport industry are particularly at risk – not only because they are more mobile but also because cash is everywhere. Even though Senegal’s national HIV prevalence is relatively low – at 0.7%, it’s much higher among local transport workers, fishermen, and sex workers.

Taxi driver Daouda Diokh is one of 25,500 transport workers reached in 2006 through USAID-supported behavior change and HIV prevention activities. Through its activities, USAID encourages people to take advantage of voluntary counseling and testing. The project helped Daouda turn around his apparent vulnerability to HIV/AIDS and use it as a tool to help protect himself and others around him as well.

After finishing high school Daouda joined the army, but he quit in 1988. “In the army, we used to stop by the infirmary for condoms before going out on furlough,” he recalls. “We were afraid we’d be thrown in jail if we contracted sexually transmitted illnesses. But I left that fear behind soon after I got out of the army.”

Public transport stations are a far cry from barracks. They bring together a host of drivers, travelers, food vendors, and peddlers in the midst of a brisk sex market.

"As soon as I broke away from the strict rules dictating military life, I stopped using condoms. At the station, they say ‘a virile man must enjoy sex flesh-to-flesh without any barrier in between.’ But I ended up getting venereal disease and first consulted a medicine man and then a doctor. I came to realize that knowledge alone will not bring about change."

Eventually Daouda became concerned about the risks of contracting diseases and started working for HIV/AIDS prevention in the Senegalese capital, Dakar.

Now he urges others to change their behavior. “It has not been easy to convince my peers to volunteer to take an HIV/AIDS test. I could not advise them to do so without doing it first myself. So I did. Afterwards, I convinced my wife and 55 young minibus apprentices to follow suit, and they are now proud that they know their HIV/AIDS status.”

He supports a network of 2,500 cart drivers and hundreds of artisans and hands out about 70 condoms to female sex workers every night. One woman he helped to leave that line of work is now married. His wife also got involved and drummed up participation of 10 women’s groups in their neighborhood to discuss HIV/AIDS testing and mother-to-child transmission.

“I have learned a lot about AIDS and life in our society," says Daouda, who once thought of himself as the ultimate ladies’ man. “The training I received has helped me recover the values I had lost, like responsibility and self-esteem."