HIV/AIDS Communication
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As December 1 marks World AIDS Day this issue of The Soul Beat focuses on communication as a tool to raise awareness, increase knowledge and reduce stigma related to HIV and AIDS. It provides summaries of programme experiences, strategic thinking documents and materials that focus on HIV and AIDS in relation to children/youth, media involvement, the facilitation of discussions and living with HIV.
If you would like your organisation's communication work or research and resource documents to be featured on the Soul Beat Africa website and in The Soul Beat newsletters, please contact the Editor - Anja Venth aventh@comminit.com
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CHILDREN AND YOUTH
1. PATH's Project on Married Adolescent Girls
Initiated by Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH), in collaboration with Population Council, this project works in rural areas of Rachuonyo District in Nyanza, Kenya to raise awareness about the risks associated with early marriage, promote voluntary counseling and testing for couples, and empower girls. PATH uses a variety of approaches including radio, theatre, transportation subsidies for voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) clients and mentoring programmes through married girls clubs. The project also includes radio spots encouraging young girls to look for a marriage partner who is their age and to go for VCT with their partner before becoming intimate.
Contact Irene Chami ichami@path.org
2. Infant Feeding Research Project (IFRP) - Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland
Launched in 2003 with research in primary care settings in South Africa, Namibia, and Swaziland, the Infant Feeding Research Project (IFRP) is a 3-phased research-led process designed to reduce the number of children dying through mother to child transmission (MTCT) of HIV by focusing on the positive potential of the woman and counsellor relationship to promote safe infant feeding practices. According to IFRAP, the relationship between a woman and a counselor is an intensive form of one-on-one communication which can shape attitudes and behaviour with regard to both children's health and women's identities.
Contact Alan Jaffe jaffa@telkomsa.net
3. Our Future: Sexuality and Life Skills Education for Young People
This book, the first in a series of three, forms part of the Government of Zambia’s strategy for sexual and reproductive health and HIV education for young people in and out of school. The book, designed for children in grades 4-5, aims to provide information about puberty, friendship, gender, sexuality, pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections, HIV/AIDS and drug use. It contains learning activities and illustrations which aim to engage young people and promote an understanding of themselves and their world.
TackleAfrica is a United Kingdom (UK) based charity organisation that aims to increase the understanding of HIV/AIDS among young Africans through football. The organisation carries out a number of sports-based HIV/AIDS awareness initiatives with the help of local partners. Tackle Africa believes that sport has the potential to bring people together and provide a platform that can be used to as a tool for communicating messages, mobilising communities to join the fight against HIV, enabling people to protect themselves properly and challenging stigma and misconceptions that surround the disease.
Contact TackleAfrica info@tackleafrica.org
5. Ungefanyaje (What would you do?) Online Game
Launched by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), this online game, aims to empower young people to make good life choices and prevent HIV. Available in both Swahili and English, the game takes the player through a series of relationship-based scenarios that emphasise the importance of HIV prevention and testing.
6. Wegen AIDS Talkline - Ethiopia
Launched in 2004 the Wegen AIDS Talkline service is a nationally available Ethiopian toll free telephone line that aims to provide access to free and anonymous HIV/AIDS information, counseling and referrals to callers to help prevent and cope with HIV/AIDS. Designed for reaching youth, people living with HIV, their families, and the public at large, the talkline provides services in six languages.
Contact Ato Negatu Mereke hiv.aids@telecom.net.et
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Looking for information and materials for World AIDS Day?
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HIV AND AIDS IN THE MEDIA
7. It Begins with You - Africa
Launched by the 41 member companies of the African Broadcast Media Partnership Against HIV/AIDS (ABMP), It Begins With You, is a pan-African HIV-public education campaign. Under the theme of “Imagine the Possibility of an HIV-Free Generation,” the multi-year campaign uses public service advertisements (PSAs) and other complementary programming to encourage all Africans to consider what they can do as individuals, families, communities and nations to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS. PSAs for television and radio form the core of the campaign; they are refreshed every six months and are planned for broadcast over three to five years. In addition, participating companies integrate the themes and messages of the campaign across programming genres, including news, public affairs and entertainment.
Contact ABMP contactus@broadcasthivafrica.org OR info@itbeginswithyou.org
8. Reporting AIDS: An Analysis of Media Environments in Southern Africa
This report shares the findings of five studies of media coverage of HIV/AIDS, carried out in Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe by the Panos London AIDS Programme, with the support of Johns Hopkins University. The studies aim to explore some of the issues and tensions involved in the relationship between the media and HIV/AIDS. In particular, they aimed to identify how the media could better fulfill its potential role in responding to the epidemic, for example by 'moving beyond awareness raising' and acting as a channel to encourage individual and social change, providing a forum for debate and holding decision-makers to account.
This UNICEF Ethiopia project aims to be a platform for African youth to speak to each other and engage with decision makers to affect change. The project aims to offer African youth opportunities to articulate and share their views on issues such as identity, HIV/AIDS, unemployment and economic poverty. Through dialogue facilitated by youth activist artists (musicians, visual artists, poets), entrepreneurs and cultural icons, youth in urban and rural locations across Africa, exchange opinions, experiences and challenges about their daily lives. Through partnerships with the mass media, private partnerships and civil society endorsement, the Speak Africa initiative also aims to create networks and platforms for expression.
Contact info@speakafrica.org
10. HIV/AIDS Communication in Selected African Countries
This 80-page report, commissioned by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), is intended to guide potential future support interventions in the area of HIV prevention communication in eastern and southern Africa. The preliminary sections of the report provide a theoretical overview of issues concerning HIV/AIDS communication and the relevance of making inter-country comparisons of prevention communication. The study involves reviews of national-level prevention activities in the following countries: Botswana, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
LIVING WITH HIV
This joint publication of Health & Development Networks (HDN) and the AIDS-Care-Watch Campaign emerges from the contributions of over 2000 people to the Stigma-AIDS eForum, which was first established in 2001 as part of a larger project on stigma and HIV/AIDS. The purpose of the eForum, which was managed and moderated by HDN, was to provide a space for interested people and communities to share their views and experiences, collectively moving towards a better and shared understanding of HIV/AIDS-related stigma, as well as learning about practical approaches to reduce it. The eForum focused initially on Southern and Eastern Africa and then expanded in 2003 to a global reach. This document provides a brief overview of the series of structured discussions.
12. Cost of Love: Older People in the Fight Against AIDS in Tanzania
This report presents the key issues facing older women and men affected by HIV/AIDS in Tanzania, including their role in providing care and support to their sons and daughters living with HIV/AIDS and to their grandchildren. It draws on participatory research with older people, community leaders, government officials and young people in five regions of Tanzania. According to the report 90% of care for people living with AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa is provided at home.
Published in South Africa, this booklet is intended to look at ways in which people who are living with HIV can change the quality of their lives by changing their nutrition. Its content includes the relationship between HIV and nutrition, antiretrovirals, supplements, traditional medicines, and substance use. Its purpose is to explore practical and accessible strategies for nutrition as a co-therapy for those on anti-retroviral therapy (ART) and a therapy alternative for those not eligible for ART.
14. Treatment Literacy: Empowering Communities to Access AIDS Treatment
This 9-page paper from Healthlink Worldwide suggests that as access to anti-retroviral therapies (ARTs) improves in developing countries, information and communication about treatment becomes more important. It proposes that with effective communication, communities are better informed about drugs, improve their understanding about what ARTs are, why they are needed and what they can and cannot do.
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CARE WORK CAMPAIGN
Home based care is being seen as a key strategy to care for people living HIV and AIDS. This often means that women and girls take on additional responsibilities. Gender and Media Southern Africa (GEMSA) Network is carrying out a campaign in seven southern African countries to raise awareness about how unpaid care work impacts on care givers and to campaign and lobby for the development of policies that will result in state support for care workers. The campaign includes working with media and collecting personal stories of those involved in care work.
For more information visit the GEMSA website
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FACILITATING DISCUSSION
15. Evaluation of Stepping Stones: A Gender Transformative HIV Prevention Intervention
Published in March 2007 by the South Africa Medical Research Council, this four-page research brief offers an evaluation of a Stepping Stones intervention in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Stepping Stones is an HIV prevention behaviour change communication (BCC) programme that aims to improve sexual health by building stronger, more gender-equitable relationships with better communication between partners.
16. Time to talk: A guide to family life in the age of AIDS
This handbook, Time to Talk, is the third book in the Called to Care toolkit. Called to Care is an initiative of the Strategies for Hope Trust, which produces books and videos that promote effective, community-based strategies of HIV and AIDS care, support and prevention in the developing world, especially in sub- Saharan Africa. The toolkit consists of practical, action-oriented booklets and mini-manuals on issues related to HIV/AIDS, designed for use by church leaders in sub-Saharan Africa.
This is a package of resources designed to facilitate discussion about HIV prevention issues among community groups in Malawi.
Assembled by the BRIDGE Project, the Hope Kit is a collaborative effort that includes materials produced by many organisations. It consists of locally developed posters, information cards, booklets, and sample materials to support community facilitators in their HIV/ AIDS prevention work.
18. 2nd Global Summit on HIV/AIDS, Traditional Medicine & Indigenous Knowledge (March 10-14 2008) - Accra, Ghana
This summit is being mounted by Africa First, in association with and support of the Ghana Ministry of Health, the World Health Organization, UNAIDS Ghana Office, Ghana AIDS Commission and Esperanza Medicines. The aim of the event is to identify traditional medicines and practices used in the prevention and management of HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, cancer, sickle cell, anaemia, diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, stroke and mental disorders, for further evaluation of safety, efficacy and quality standards.
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To view HIV and AIDS related previous issues of The Soul Beat newsletter see:
The Soul Beat 75 - Action for Orphans and Vulnerable Children
The Soul Beat 62 - MDG # 6 - Combatting HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
The Soul Beat 20 - Women & HIV/AIDS
Click here to view archived editions of The Soul Beat Newsletter.
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