Sci&Tech History

In Uganda, living with HIV/AIDS is become an every day experience. From UNAIDS report at the end of 1999, it is estimated that out of 24.5 million adults and children living with HIV/AIDS live in sub-Saharan Africa from its total 34.3 million. In Uganda itself, the number was estimated 820,000 adults and children living with HIV/AIDS and 1.7 million AIDS orphans.

How the people of Uganda deal with the HIV/AIDS as a part of every day experience, is an expressions of denial, hopelessness, and suffering. Expressions which also mystified by numbers and stories that convince them as a hopeless community. This condition, made people with HIV/AIDS have to deal not only with the virus and its effect, but also deal with mental construction that people gave to them and at the end, that they gave to their self.

To cut this circle, several researchers have found a critical need to find ways to represent the reality as it is. They are currently experimenting with the use of genograms—a clinical tool typically used in family medicine and family based therapy to depict(primarily genealogical) relationship between family. As a graphic research and educational tool, genograms have been found to complement ethnographic data, usually in the form of narratives and stories, and epidemiological data that report HIV/AIDS incidence and prevalence in statistical and numerical formats.

Genograms innovation helps the people of Uganda and international community to see the real condition clearer. But its impact can only happened, if some pre-condition fulfilled. This pre-condition needs knowledge translations, which involve stakeholders from parents, youth, service providers, and international community. The success of knowledge translations will influence the success of genograms innovation, and at the end how people of Uganda see their self with hope and dignity.

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