SOUTH AFRICA: Tired of the "same old" AIDS messages
AIDS activists in South Africa have called
for the revision of "outdated" HIV/AIDS messages which have been
circulating for years but have failed to achieve behaviour change.
Handing out pamphlets with catchy slogans has little effect, experts say.
People require more than awareness and basic education - they need advice
on how to apply their knowledge of AIDS to their daily lives.
Yet, large numbers of grassroots organisations keep handing out pamphlets
with simplified phrases like "Use condoms" or "Break the
silence", which
were developed more than 10 years ago. As a result, experts have found
that many South Africans have lost interest in understanding the virus,
and the HIV infection rate has remained stubbornly high at more than 21
percent of the population.
Sally Ward, a manager at Soul City, an HIV/AIDS learning material
producer, told IRIN that people were tired of hearing the "same old"
AIDS
messages over and over again. "The pandemic has changed [over the years],
and so has people's need for information," she said. People do not want to
hear anymore that they need to use condoms, but rather how to negotiate
safer sex with their partners.
Nonhlanhla Xaba, operations manager of the Durban-based AIDS Foundation
South Africa, gave a further example of a widely used awareness campaign
that she said failed to make the grade. "The slogan ABC [Abstain, Be
faithful, use a Condom] is regrettably still prevalent, although we know
that women, due to gender imbalances, cannot implement these rules," she
noted.
Xaba also highlighted the fact that AIDS messages needed to be updated
regularly. "Right now, messages crafted years ago tend to stay on although
they clearly have loopholes."
For maximum impact, HIV/AIDS messages need to be well researched and
tested by a target audience before being publicised. The Soul City
education team, for example, goes through an in-depth evaluation process
before launching new training material.
Most recently, Soul City has been developing brochures on the subject of
antiretroviral therapy. The team first interviewed a range of health
workers, doctors, nurses and patients for background information, then
discussed the brochure content in a workshop, wrote a number of drafts
and, lastly, tested the new education material with a target audience. The
process took almost a year, Ward said.
"It is very difficult to develop material on complex, medical topics
that
is easy to understand," she pointed out.
Soul City was founded in 1994 when little user-friendly educational
material was on the market. It has developed a range of training
materials, including posters, comic books and videos, as well as working
on "edutainment" television and radio programmes.
"We don't have a reading culture in South Africa," noted Xaba.
"Especially
young people need to be entertained while educated, for example through
drama, games and activity-based learning."
She added that a large number of education programmes have failed to make
an impact because they were designed by people who had a great deal of
medical knowledge, but knew little about the cultural realities which
would determine whether people would be able to relate to the messages.
Training organisations agree that there is a huge gap between hearing a
slogan and behaviour change.
Laura Washington, facilitator of the Durban-based training organisation
Project Empower, told IRIN that her group realised that tackling high-risk
behaviour was "not about the condom" but about people's "social
fabric",
such as communication within relationships, gender imbalances and societal
perceptions of sexuality.
Project Empower decided to move beyond AIDS as a topic and began
organising workshops to talk more broadly about cultural restrictions, and
issues of taking control, tolerance and social power. The subject of
HIV/AIDS is discussed only indirectly.
"People need to engage in the learning process and explore what the
newly
gained knowledge means for them on a personal level," Washington
explained.
More information:
[This Item may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations.
Copyright (©) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2004]
www.irinnews.org
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