PANJIM: The parents of the Rivona school, where the children of the nearby orphanage including 13 HIV affected, were admitted, are now blaming the school for having handled the incident in the most unprofessional manner.
“All this needlessly was started by the management and the convent. All these 36 students were present in Rivona and we parents never objected to their presence in the village”, said Cherryl Lopes, who claims to be representing all parents of this school.
“We parents have not discriminated against these children at all. In fact, our altar servers along with some parents and villagers of our parish had visited the convent last year to interact with the children. The sisters did not allow the visitors to personally hand over the eatables to the HIV+ children.”
According to her, the controversy first began when Fr Lino Florindo raised the issue at the church meeting in Rivona. A parishioner, Lourenco Fernandes, had requested Fr Florindo to take the parents into confidence before taking a decision in the matter, as it was a sensitive issue.
The convent nuns had approached school principal Fr Jerry Vaz seeking to admit the 23 uninfected and 13 HIV+ infected students to the school and he initially refused to do so. The nuns then shifted the children to the Sulcorna school and the Rivona villagers were neither involved nor aware about this move.
Ms Lopez then added, “In the Sulcorna school, one HIV+ child is reported to have threatened to pass on her infection by biting another child. This child then reported the matter to her parents and the parents then raised the issue along with other parents in the Sulcorna school”.
(Herald has not heard of any such incident, nor was this mentioned or informed to any of the authorities and therefore stands unverified)
Ms Lopez went on to narrate: “Following protests from parents, the Sulcorna school then withdrew admission to the 36 children and the nuns brought them back to the Rivona school. During the assembly at the Rivona school, the school principal brought the children and kept them aside.” According to Ms Lopez, sometime later, some parents noticed a primary school teacher nervous while having a talk with the school manager. On enquiring, the parents found out that the 36 children had been brought back to the school. The parents then met Fr Jerry Vaz, who confirmed that the 36 children had been readmitted to the Rivona school. The parents then sought to meet the nuns, who flatly refused to interact with them on the issue. The school management then invited experts and had a talk with parents and the children, besides showing them a documentary on HIV+ children. But instead of educating the children, the talk further caused panic among the children and upset the parents.
I wish to categorically state that no parent had ever sought to identify those HIV+ students and so the question of invasion of privacy just does not arise.
The parents strongly feel that the Rivona school has let them down. Before the academic year itself, one parent Telu Dias, had asked Fr Jerry Vaz if he was going to admit the HIV+ children to the Rivona school. Fr Jerry reportedly told Dias that he would not admit the HIV+ students as he did not want to risk the withdrawal of the other children from the school. “Please note that Rivona is a rural area of Goa and not everyone is educated. Parents take their own time to understand the ground realities and implications. The school management should have taken the trouble to take the parents into confidence and educated them on the issue of HIV+ in the first place.”
Ms Lopez alleged that the school initially did not assure the parents that the 23 uninfected children had posed no threat whatsoever to the other children. After considerable delay, the school finally claimed that these 23 children were uninfected and this led to further suspicion among the parents. “Our children are now traumatised over this entire episode and don’t want to go to the Rivona school”, she lamented.
In the interest of reporting both sides of the story, HERALD is carrying a detailed version of the parents of the Rivona school. Your newspaper still condemns the stand taken by the parents and their decision of creating hurdles in the admission of 13 HIV+ children who ultimately had to be moved to a far flung part of Goa, because of their refusal to accept them. HERALD will continue to react and comment upon this published reaction
