|
|
 |
HIV/AIDS campaign to be led from the grassroots
Reprinted courtesy of IRIN PlusNews 27 May 2002.
|
Swaziland's mayors are adopting a novel new method in the fight against HIV/AIDS. They are reversing the usual top-down approach and are being led instead by their constituents, ordinary Swazis.
"The voice of the people will determine how we will combat AIDS in the towns," explained chairman of the Ezulwini town board, Nokuthula Mthembu. The first woman to hold the top government post in her municipality, Mthembu is chair of the Executive Council of the Alliance of Mayors' Initiative for Community Action on AIDS at the Local Level (AMICAALL).
"There has never been a project like this one," Mthembu told IRIN. "But we absolutely must have an innovative approach to combat the deadly disease that is attacking our municipalities. We desperately need fresh ideas."
Whole new layers of bureaucracy have been added to Swaziland's health services as the AIDS epidemic has worsened, but little tangible effect can be seen. The increase in new HIV infections is relentless. The health ministry's insistence that one-fifth of the adult population is HIV positive is ridiculed by health NGOs and the media. Even UN estimates that one-third of Swazi adults are infected are considred by some as too low.
The town Mthembu manages is a scenic, upscale community in a picturesque valley immediately east of the capital, Mbabane. The top luxury hotels are located there, which makes the valley a prime tourist attraction. It is a different locale entirely from the dusty, lowveld agricultural centre of Vuvulane, in the sugar-growing district adjacent to the South African border. But Mthembu and municipal leaders throughout Swaziland recently assembled in the 20 square hectare town to launch eastern Swaziland's first AMICAALL campaign.
Rudolph Maziya, national coordinator of the initiative, explained: "About 25 percent of Swazis stand to benefit from AMICAALL-financed projects. But there is a spill over effect, and many more people will benefit because town and rural people intermingle in Swaziland. People work in towns, but they visit or live in rural homesteads. People assemble in rural centres like Vuvulane, where they are likely to contract HIV, especially the seasonal agriculture workers. They then carry the condition back to their homesteads, particularly if the man is a polygamist with several wives at home."
The projects sponsored by the town mayors to combat AIDS, then, will have a national impact. But the mayors themselves will not be coming up with ideas on their own. They will count on their constituents' judgment on the needs of their neighbours and communities.
"We will listen to the people," said Churchill Fakudze, mayor of the central town of Manzini, Swaziland's most populous urban centre. "Proposals will come to us, and we will make our recommendations to AMICAALL's office to provide funding and technical assistance."
According to Mthembu: "The people may want an orphanage for children who have lost their parents to AIDS. Their project may be a hospice, or a counselling centre, whatever people feel they need."
Some of the failures of previous anti-AIDS initiatives have been a lack of national coordination, a paucity of funding and expertise, and a reliance on foreign experts who fail to connect with ordinary Swazis reluctant to speak with strangers about the sensitive subject of AIDS, much less follow health dictates they do not understand. The mayors' initiative will turn the equation on its head, and put the technicians at the service of the people.
"It is all about personal initiative," said the programme's coordinator, Maziya. "Community people are in the best position to know the tools they need to combat AIDS, and not some faraway bureaucrat in the capital."
Maziya said the African Capacity Building Foundation and the Swaziland government are providing seed money for projects. The UN Development Programme has also committed its support.
"None of the projects are predetermined," he added. "We do not dictate how communities should react to AIDS. We believe people have the capacity to decide how to resolve the problem at their level." |
| Was this article helpful to you? |
 ?0%???? ?0%
|
|
Back
|
|
|
|
