Karen Lander
Northern News Services

NNSL (Jan 25/99) - The HIV/AIDS Prevention and Community Action Program is sponsoring a video on HIV/AIDS education and I.V. drug-use. The new video, funded by Health Canada, was shot in Yellowknife.

Ottawa's Jeff Dodds, a consultant with Health Canada, was present at the time the video was filmed. Gary Adkins, manager of the Fort Smith Metis Council and a Metis education trainee, produced and directed the video.

Adkins explained that by filming the video, "We hope to bring awareness, because there's people here in the North that, although I.V. drug-use isn't as prevalent here as it is down south, it is commencing being a little bit more prevalent.

"So we're hoping to bring awareness to people who are into or are beginning to use drugs to use clean needles." Adkins said, "If you're going to use, use clean needles. There are places in the health centres here in the territories where you can get needles for exchange. Don't share with anybody else. This is how Hepatitis C, HIV/AIDS is transmitted, not just sexually."

Co-producer Sarah Daitch, a Grade 12 student at PWCA high school in Fort Smith, conducted most of the interviews.

"I would ask people questions, discuss with them whatever it was they had to do with HIV and I.V. drug-use, that was my basic role," said Daitch. "What I hope to accomplish is to make people more aware about the risks about HIV and I.V. drug-use and AIDS in general."

Daitch assisted in writing the script three years ago and also acted in the video. She was working through the Work Experience Program with Patty Hamilton at CBC.

"She gives me various projects that I work on."

Fort Smith's Ruth Ann Vogt of Health Canada explained, "We're hoping it's going to be a very educational video helping people to prevent the use of intravenous (drugs) in the NWT because it's such a terrible scene for the young people to get hooked on these drugs."

She continued, "We're hoping that this video is going to be a preventative measure by showing what can actually happen if you're hooked on drugs."

Fort Chipewyan's Elizabeth Johnson was the main character in the video. The 17-year-old student hopes to get the message across to people about what using I.V. drugs can do to a person.