By MELISSA DASSRATH Sunday, December 6 2009

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At the book launch of HIV-AIDS & Social Work Practice in the Caribbean: Theory, Issues & Innovation, the editors Priya E. Maharaj (from left), Profes...

Three years of painstaking research into the health implications and the human side of the HIV/AIDS epidemic culminated on Friday with the launch of a book entitled HIV-AIDS & Social Work Practice in the Caribbean: Theory, Issues & Innovation in the lounge of University of the West Indies (UWI) Faculty of Social Sciences.

Scholars in the fields of social work, psychology and economics at UWI conducted research and the book is a compilation of the body of work generated by the Sondi Project. The Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and the head of the Department of Behavioural Sciences, Dr Hamid Ghany discussed the evolution and fruition of the research: “It is extremely pleasing to see the final product here. I must say that some of the topics which are covered in the book such as Social Work and Social Transformation, A Theoretical Model for AIDS Interventions and Accepting to Live: Disclosing the truth about

HIV/AIDS are all very significant topics and interventions for something that has a far reaching effect in this region. I am sure this book will help advance the frontier of knowledge. This book will break barriers with its case studies.”

Senator and Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Health Wesley Georgeindicated that the book has the potential to serve as a useful tool to manage the spread of HIV/AIDS and the social stain it leaves on the lives of sufferers.

The book has many applications for those within the health sector dealing with the tragic deterioration of HIV/AID patients as well as persons working in the field of social work dealing with families coping with the symptoms and stigmas associated with the disease.

The book was edited by Jacqueline Padmore, Priya E. Maharaj and Professor Adele D. Jones. Jones is a Professor of Childhood Studies at University of Huddersfield in England. “This book has its genesis in something bigger. I remember watching a programme on World AIDS Day five years ago. These two children lost their mother first and then their father to AIDS. While all of these stories are tragic, I could not contain my sadness about this one. I cried about it and then I said we have to do more at the Social Work Unit. So I wrote a proposal and that is how it the project Sondi was born.

“Sondi is a South African word which means ‘keep pushing forward’. We decided then that we would produce knowledge born out of the Caribbean experience based in Trinidad and Tobago.

That we would produce new interventions. We also produced a master’s that specialises in HIV/AIDS prevention, management and treatment. This is the only such master’s programme in the world. This book is one product that is the result of many different activities of Sondi.”