Abidjan: Rose Dossou is head of Chigata, an NGO caring for children living with HIVin Cote d’Ivoire’s economic capital Abidjan. But according to her, these children are even rejected by teachers who must give them classes. “A child reported that his teacher told his classmates not to play withy him because he is dangerous,” Mrs Dossou told The Traveller.

A teacher even refused to put a girl who had eye problems, in front of the black board because she came from Chigata. “When we asked the teacher to put the child in front to allow her to see better, she answered that we were tiring her with our children,” Mrs Dosou said. “Yet the child’s eye problem had nothing to do with her being HIV infected,” she added.

And when the child was first in her class, the teacher was very surprised as she never believed an HIV infected child can be intelligent, Rose Dossou told the Traveller. “The girl was first of her class. And the teacher said that she couldn’t believe these HIV infected children could be so smart,” Mrs Dossou said. Let’s give them a chance and HIV infected children will live longer, get goods results at school, and succeed in life.