Rio The Survivor is a film based on true story of a child living with HIV fighting for the right to live and education. Rio Sudiro (11 years old) has been living with HIV from his birth, and both his parents have died of AIDS.
Rio The Survivor is a film based on true story of a child living with HIV fighting for the right to live and education. Rio Sudiro (11 years old) has been living with HIV from his birth, and both his parents have died of AIDS. Rio’s father passed away while he was still in his mother’s womb and his mother has recently passed away a year ago.
After his mother died, Rio was taken care of by his grandmother. They live by selling fried food in front of the house and to have other stall in neighbourhood reselling their fried food.
Rio is a smart, creative, and outgoing young boy which loves playing soccer and pantomime as a hobby.
He even has won awards at some children’s pantomime competitions. Rio is also a mainstay player in his school’s soccer team and his team is currently participating in a elementary school competition.
But the problem comes when the parents of his friends at school found out that Rio is a child living with HIV. Due to the lack of correct information and understanding about HIV and AIDS, Rio has faced discrimination from them and forced him to leave school.
The news about Rio living with HIV also spreaded around his neighbours at home. His friends in his village stayed away and his neighbours try to expell Rio and his grandmother from the village.
The stall at home became deserted, no one wanted to buy fried foods anymore and there were no other stalls that wanted to resell fried foods from Rio anymore. When his grandmother put Rio in a new school, Rio was again treated with discrimination. His teacher didn’t even want to shake hands with him.
Receiving various discrimination has made him down, very sad, and desperate, but his grandmother is very strong person and can convince him to stay strong.
Fortunately Rio also has three best friends, namely Rendi, Andi, and Tono. They try to find the correct information about HIV and AIDS. After they know that HIV is not transmitted through casual social contact, they remain friends with Rio and did not stay away from him. They even tried to spread the correct information about HIV and AIDS to Rio’s neighbours and their parents.
Andi and Tono also keep Rio informed about the lessons learned at school during Rio’s absence. They even accompanied Rio to look for his grandparents from his father’s side who he had never met.
