Over the past two years, Dr. John Chittick '70 has "walked" around 40 countries on six continents leading a grass-roots effort to teach 75,000 teens how to protect their friends and themselves from the AIDS epidemic. Now Chittick has returned to Dartmouth and will lead a Collis Community Hour today at noon.
Chittick uses the "walking" metaphor because when he reaches a destination (by air, rail or road), he spends his time on the streets, talking to young people in the trenches of the war on AIDS.
Having already exhausted his life savings in this endeavor, Chittick travels on the cheap, staying in inexpensive hotels, college dorms and the homes of those he teaches.
The message he shares is a simple one. "Shy equals die" he says. "If you're too shy to talk, friends could die."
Chittick's goal is to share life-saving medical information about the danger of AIDS and how the disease is spread to teens around the world. He uses three techniques to convey his information.
The first is the "AIDS attack," in which Chittick and his local peer educators stop teens on the street and talk to them about AIDS.
He said, "It is important to approach people when they're not coming with the preconceived notion of 'I don't want to learn about AIDS.'"
The "AIDS attack" is enough to share a bit of critical information and helps spread AIDS information and the work that he and his organization do, he said.
The second approach is stop-action improvisational theater in which Chittick, his volunteers and members of the informal audience act out scenes with a message. The skits are fun and relaxed, but as they add AIDS information, they become another effective teaching method.
The third tool he employs is a low budget comic book drawn by his teenage volunteers. He encourages them to include local details so that other teens will relate to the comic, which always has a theme of AIDS education. He also prints AIDS facts and information on the back.
Chittick is sensitive to culture in the places he visits and avoids political and religious debates. But when confronted by parents and governments that don't want him talking about such "sensitive subjects and taboos" as sexuality and the spread of AIDS, he replies "There's nothing in any law or holy book that says young people should be denied the information to protect their lives."
"It is every teen's human right to have access to this information," Chittick said.
This in-your-face approach is not without its drawbacks. He has occasionally been threatened and was even once arrested in Cuba. He says that for the most part, though, the reception is usually very positive.
This is the first time Chittick has brought his message of AIDS awareness back to Dartmouth, and he is planning to use the same approach here as he uses throughout the rest of the world.
He said this sort of education is very important at a place like Dartmouth where "teens have a lot going for them and they shouldn't throw it away."
Chittick's movement is grass-roots and relatively small scale. Speaking of his organization, TeenAIDS-PeerCorps, Chittick said, "We're not going to save the world, but we do save lives, and that is what keeps us going."
Chittick is currently planning his next "walk" and this time plans to bring American teenagers with him in order to teach them his trade of training peer educators. He said he would be "honored" to be accompanied by students from Dartmouth.
