Bo­bie-lee Dixon

It was an ed­u­ca­tion­al, emo­tion­al and in­for­ma­tive evening last Mon­day, for all who at­tend­ed the pre­miere of Pos­i­tive and Preg­nant- a pow­er­ful 25-minute-long docu­d­ra­ma on HIV, preg­nan­cy, and treat­ment.Pro­duced and di­rect­ed by the founders of the Lela-Walk­er Foun­da­tion, Can­dice Lela-Rol­ing­son and Sta­cy Lela, and script­ed by Ny­ron Rol­ing­son- the film's ac­tors de­liv­ered their roles quite con­vinc­ing­ly, cap­tur­ing the full at­ten­tion of the au­di­ence with their mes­sage.

It was safe to say, every­one walked away with two things in mind-get test­ed and love in spite of.The film, which pre­miered at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my For the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA), and was host­ed by the Min­istry of the Peo­ple and So­cial De­vel­op­ment, en­com­passed every as­pect that sur­rounds HIV/Aids. From guilt, hurt, shame, and dis­crim­i­na­tion, to blame, prej­u­dice, aban­don­ment and hope.

A well di­rect­ed piece, it fea­tured a young in­tel­li­gent and de­cent cou­ple, Mar­vin and Ali­cia, played by lo­cal ac­tors Du­ane (3D) Dario Dixon and Jea­nine Lee Kim. The cou­ple, in their mid-twen­ties, fall deeply in love, and like most peo­ple in love, be­come blind­ed by over­whelm­ing emo­tions, and en­ter in­to sex­u­al in­ti­ma­cy ir­re­spon­si­bly. Lat­er, they find out the hor­rif­ic ram­i­fi­ca­tions of their ac­tions-Ali­cia is in­fect­ed with the HIV virus, and is about to be­come a moth­er.

On her jour­ney to "right" her wrong, she dis­cov­ers how she can live a longer and health­i­er life with treat­ment, and how she can pre­vent her un­born ba­by from con­tract­ing the ill­ness.

About the cre­ator

In a time when there are nu­mer­ous ed­u­ca­tion­al pro­grammes for all to be bet­ter in­formed about HIV/Aids, those in­fect­ed with the dis­ease are still faced with dis­crim­i­na­tion, prej­u­dice and hate. Since the es­tab­lish­ment of World Aids Day back in 1988, the World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion (WHO) has been work­ing as­sid­u­ous­ly to im­prove the lives of those in­fect­ed with and af­fect­ed by the ill­ness.

It has al­so been suc­cess­ful in mak­ing World Aids Day a glob­al ex­er­cise, where each coun­try does its part in ed­u­cat­ing the pub­lic on the pre­ven­tion, coun­selling and treat­ment for HIV/Aids.Through its work, we have moved away from the my­opic way of think­ing-that HIV is a ho­mo­sex­u­al dis­ease, or one that on­ly af­fects those who live a promis­cu­ous lifestyle. While those liv­ing the for­mer, may be more at risk, HIV/Aids is no re­specter of per­sons.

It has in­fect­ed some who have been very faith­ful part­ners. Con­tact with the virus have al­so been made through blood trans­fu­sions, (Fa­mous black ten­nis champ, Arthur Ashe), through ver­ti­cal trans­mis­sion, in­cest and rape to name a few. The film Pos­i­tive and Preg­nant, which was fund­ed by the Em­bassy of the Unit­ed States through Pres­i­dent Oba­ma's PEP­FAR pro­gramme (Pres­i­dent's Emer­gency Plan for Aids Re­lief), seeks to ad­dress all these is­sues, and, as its cre­ator and pro­duc­er Can­dice Lela-Rol­ing­son ex­plained, she want­ed to place spe­cial em­pha­sis on the pre­ven­tion of moth­er to child trans­mis­sion (PMTCT).

Ac­cord­ing to Lela-Rol­ing­son, she be­gan the Walk­er-Lela Foun­da­tion with the pri­ma­ry fo­cus geared to­wards the em­pow­er­ment of women and girls. "The idea for the Foun­da­tion was born some time af­ter my moth­er's pass­ing. She was very in­flu­en­tial as a teacher and phil­an­thropist, who up­lift­ed young women and chil­dren in the com­mu­ni­ty of Cara­po, where we resided. A place where many women en­dured do­mes­tic vi­o­lence and abuse. "I felt the need to car­ry on her work of em­pow­er­ing women,

be­cause there is a strong link be­tween the lack of the em­pow­er­ment of women and the so­cial ills that plague so­ci­ety such as pover­ty, do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, drug abuse, in­cest, teenage preg­nan­cy and the spread of sex­u­al­ly trans­mit­ted dis­eases like HIV/Aids.

"The docu­d­ra­ma, Pos­i­tive and Preg­nant is just our first ma­jor ef­fort to­wards this cause," re­vealed Lela-Rol­ing­son.

Fu­ture plans

With the film be­ing sup­port­ed by the Unites States Em­bassy, the T&T Film com­pa­ny, the Min­istry of the Peo­ple and So­cial De­vel­op­ment, and a host of NGOs that are fight­ing hard to re­duce and erad­i­cate this dread­ful dis­ease, Lela-Rol­ing­son plans to take the film through­out the coun­try and the Caribbean, as the first part of her se­ries of out­reach pro­grammes to come. "Ac­tu­al­ly at a date to be an­nounced in Jan­u­ary, the US Em­bassy would be host­ing our first out­reach pro­gramme at the na­tion­al Li­brary (NALIS).

"We hope to meet with the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to dis­cuss get­ting the pro­grammes on the ed­u­ca­tion syl­labus," said Lela-Rol­ing­son."We have al­so sub­mit­ted the film to Caribbean Film Cor­ner in Lon­don, hope­ful­ly it would be ac­cept­ed, and next year, God's will­ing, we al­so hope to be ac­cept­ed in­to the T&T Film Fes­ti­val with our fol­low up film-Pos­i­tive­ly Preg­nant (The Male Per­spec­tive)."