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The Campus HIV/AIDS Support Unit is an initiative that was founded by The Centre for HIV/AIDS Networking (HIVAN). After three successful years, it has been formally incorporated into the University of KwaZulu-Natal's AIDS Programme.

One of the most frequently cited challenges around the fight against HIV/AIDS is a lack of accurate and informed information. The Campus HIV/AIDS Support Unit Resource Centre intends to address this challenge by having available current information on the epidemic, both at a socio-behavioural level as well as a biomedical level. Information brochures, videos and books will also be available. Information sessions will be held at the centre and staff training will be on-going.

As another strategy to ensure adequate information and support is being given to students, a peer education programme is being planned at the Howard College campus. A similar programme has already been in place for a number of years at the Pietermaritzburg Campus. This programme will be facilitated both by internal and external trainers.

Each school at the University of KwaZulu-Natal will be encouraged to have a volunteer staff member trained by the Unit in basic HIV/AIDS information and counselling skills. The objective is to have an "HIV/AIDS-friendly" person at each school for students to approach should they need to discuss HIV/AIDS-related issues, such as how it may be impacting on their studies.

In a similar vein, University residence Life Officers will also be approached to volunteer their services to become trained as HIV/AIDS lay counsellors. Students living in residences will then have someone whom they can approach for information and counselling.

"Drowning in the sea of sex" - communications, counselling and compassion - Judith King, HIVAN Media Office

Tesfagabir Tesfu

Tesfagabir Tesfu did not set out to become involved with HIV/AIDS pre- and post-test counselling when he came to the University of KwaZulu-Natal's Durban campus from Eritrea nearly 18 months ago. He had been a reporter in his country's Ministry of Information for over two years after graduating with a BA in English, when his employers offered him a bursary to study for a Master's degree in "Health Promotion through Entertainment-Education" at UND's Centre for Culture, Communication and Media Studies.

Now in the final stages of his MA programme, Tesfagabir is working on his thesis, which involves an evaluation of the HIV/AIDS Voluntary Counselling and Testing Programme offered by the University of Durban-Westville. In support of his research, he decided to enrol for an HIV/AIDS Pre- and Post-test Counselling course, run during the mid-year vacation by Kerry Frizelle of UND's School of Psychology in association with HIVAN, the Centre for HIV/AIDS Networking.

"The content of the Counselling course will inform the development of a questionnaire that I am composing for use in the evaluation process," explains Tesfagabir. "and I feel much more confident now about my levels of knowledge, in terms of both basic facts and broader knowledge about the HIV/AIDS epidemic. But the eight days of training has brought me so much more than this research support - I have learnt many things beneficial to my personal and professional development."

He reflects that the most significant lesson he will take from the course is the awareness of the need, when engaging fully with a person seeking counselling, to suspend personal judgement and to set aside one's own deeply held attitudes and beliefs. "This is not an easy thing to do," he admits. "In my country, sex is not an 'open' topic of discussion; it is never explicitly portrayed in movies or on television, and pornography is banned in video-shops. One doesn't even see 'deep kissing' in public, and there is no exposure regarding alternative sexual orientations or lifestyles."

Eritrea has a population of approximately 3,5 million, roughly half of whom are Muslim and the other Christian, and incorporating nine different ethnic groups. According to a UNAIDS briefing on AIDS prevention interventions amongst youth in Eritrea (Best Practice Collection Issue 2, September 2000, Page 14), HIV prevalence has been growing rapidly since 1998, doubling every 18 months.

The study confirms that traditionally, young people have difficulty in obtaining information on health education, social and sexual matters; the family is typically unprepared to deal with such subjects and the school system does not cater to the physical and psychological needs of the young. The National Union of Eritrean Youth and Students (NUEYS) is working to address these problems, through educational and media programmes incorporating discussion around dating, friendship, love and sex, school and peers, as well as basic facts about HIV and AIDS.

Tesfagabir believes that the media have a vital role to play in fighting the epidemic in his country, and specifically in the use of entertainment to educate and truly engage audiences. "Although my impression is that our media focus on HIV/AIDS is more active in Eritrea than in South Africa, I've found the CCMS programme so inspiring, as it's taught by prominent experts in the field. I've also come to understand that one can achieve so much using 'edutainment' to inform the public about the epidemic, whether through TV characters, celebrity messaging, integrating HIV/AIDS with music, into news broadcasts and also relaying 'human-face' stories."

For Tesfagabir, the Counselling course has complemented this training in many ways. "I have more insight into the psychology of human behaviour, in particular the denial and fear that surrounds the epidemic and why this is so. Every participant was my teacher," he recalls. "We all came from such diverse backgrounds, studying and working in various sectors and disciplines, and bringing so many different stories to the group. There were medical students, help-line volunteers, a young man with a 'seeing-eye' dog called Shannon, people from various communities, some from elsewhere overseas & and their constructive advice, especially during the role-play exercises, was very helpful for many aspects of my life."

Psychology lecturer Kerry Frizelle, who designed and facilitates the eight-day course, elaborates: "What's important about this training is how it develops in response to the dynamics and profile of the participants themselves. One finds that the wider the range of social backgrounds they bring with them, the more their unique energies and experiences complement one another, so that each session proceeds within a wonderfully rich context for learning, and a remarkable balance is achieved through an informal level of dialogue."

"The informality and close bonding is very important," Kerry explains, "because a great deal of self-examination is required of the trainees, so that they can relate in a profound way to the counselling exercise. They need to grasp the magnitude of what clients are doing in taking that first step towards voluntary HIV testing. The counsellors play a vital role in such clients taking the next step (agreeing to take the test), in assuring them that they are worthy and special people no matter what their status is, and in helping them to stay HIV-negative or to cope with an HIV-positive result. A high level of professionalism is also expected: maintaining confidentiality, containing the client's and their own emotions, and processing the experience as a whole requires total commitment as well as inner strength and sensitivity."

One particular focus-topic for discussion that brought this home to Tesfagabir was that of the use of condoms in HIV prevention interventions. "In Eritrea, the name for 'condom' is 'abu selama', meaning 'dolphin'," he says. "It denotes all the qualities of the dolphin, especially its close, protective and compassionate bonding with humans."

"So, I was surprised to discover during our counselling course that the South African government imports its condoms for free distribution from China," he continues. "It made me wonder whether there is not the risk of deterioration during shipping of the condoms from overseas and the long process it probably takes for delivery. Also, using a condom, in a sexually-charged scenario, is quite complicated! Apart from knowing how to fit and use it properly, one needs to negotiate its use, be aware of the risk of tearing, and discard it carefully &".

These reservations about condoms have led him to prioritise abstinence and fidelity as more viable options for prevention of HIV transmission. "In my country, the messaging around the condom goes: 'If you're drowning in the sea of sex, you can be saved by a dolphin (condom)', but the training and research on HIV counselling I've experienced through these courses has convinced me that communicating with compassion is the key to saving lives."

For more information on the Health Promotion through Entertainment-Education course, please visit: http://www.nu.ac.za/ccms/or E-mail: [email protected]

Intensive Pre- and Post-Test HIV/AIDS Counselling Course - June/July 2003

HIVAN's Campus HIV/AIDS Support Unit, in collaboration with the School of Psychology at the University of KwaZulu-Natal - Durban, held an intensive 8-day pre- and post-test HIV/AIDS Counselling Course. Facilitated and desgined by Kerry Frizelle, the course content included, amongst other topics:

• Representations of HIV/AIDS in South Africa
• Self-awareness and worldviews
• Introduction to the TASO model of counselling
• Pre-test Counselling
• Post-test Counselling
• Understanding sexuality
• Behaviour Change - analysing the ABC-model
• Home-based Care

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Health Promotion Through Entertainment Education - Graduate Module at Culture, Communication and Media Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban

Ever wondered why SOUL CITY and YIZO YIZO are amongst of South Africa's most highly rated TV dramas? Or, what the relationship is between entertainment and education? Or whether people can actually change the way they think and live simply by watching television? Did you know that a study in the USA showed that serial dramas are the number one source of health information? Want to learn how to create entertainment education programmes?

Then you should register for this module in 2003 as part of the Culture, Communiation and Media Studies (CCMS) Graduate Programme. The course was inaugurated in 2002 and will be developed in 2003.

• What's the Module About?

This Honours/MA module acquaints students with broad approaches to communicating for health promotion, focusing specifically on the role of entertainment education (EE). The module can also be taken on its own for certificate rather than degree purposes. Students will obtain a clear understanding of key theories of health promotion communication; of EE interventions; of how to apply theoretical understanding in the development of framework for EE activities; and will develop an ability to create criteria for the research of EE activities. The module includes an introduction to public health and health communication; theories of health behaviour, behavioural and social change; communication research and conceptual frameworks for strategic health communication. Throughout the course, the relation of EE to other modules - eg. development communication, visual anthropology, media in the global world, media and society etc. - is demonstrated and theorised through practical assignments.

• Who Teaches the Module?

CCMS works with academics and professionals from three partner organisations: the Johns Hopkins University Center for
Communications Programs, Baltimore, USA; the Centre for AIDS Development, Research and Evaluation (CADRE - Johannesburg, Cape Town, Grahamstown) and Drama in Aids (DramAidE), CMS's Durban partner. Other contributors include SOUL CITY.

• Students/Internships/Projects

Students will be located, where possible, within the research, administrative, and project infrastructures of CADRE and DramAidE as well as the Development, Media and Arts Research Unit. This Unit, a joint venture between CCMS and DramAidE, is geared towards action research relating to health communication. The Unit works via DramAidE with schools and grassroots community organisations, especially on life skills and HIV/AIDS prevention and education. The funded research is project-based and designed to teach graduate students to work in the field on actual projects, and with real benefiting communities. Selection of South African candidates for the annual internships and bursaries will be based on relevant project experience and commitment to delivery, ability to work in teams, and commitment to full-time studies in the field. Students will thus receive specialised supervision and field experience via these participating NGOs. CCMS has a vibrant graduate community composed of students from Africa and all over the world.

For further information, please visit: http://www.nu.ac.za/ccms/or E-mail: [email protected]

BESG Special Needs Housing Programme - a response to HIV/AIDS and vulnerability

In 2000, the Built Environment Support Group (BESG), together with the affiliates of the Urban Sector Network (USN), embarked on a USAID-funded programme to capacitate the sector around issues of HIV/AIDS and urban development. The programme became part of a broader process to formulate a comprehensive and integrative Special Needs housing programme for BESG.

The components of BESG's programme are outlined as follows: Supportive Housing Pilots; Applied Research and Assessment and Advocacy and Policy Development.

BESG's programme strives to create supportive physical and social environments for those who are affected by HIV/AIDS and other life-threatening problems. This target group has limited access to resources and BESG believes that mitigating the impact of the epidemic on households and local communities should be a core aspect of its overall strategy. BESG is committed to participative and inclusive planning and development processes to achieve this purpose.

Supportive Housing Pilots

BESG works in partnership with various organisations who share this purpose and focus. These include Children in Distress (CINDI) Network partners, Durban Children's Society, Kokstad Child Welfare Society and Project Preparation Trust.

Examples of pilot projects undertaken:

Provision of transitional care:

Ekhaya Lethemba Place of Safety, Pietermaritzburg: the renovation and conversion of dilapidated turn-of-the-century houses in the CBD to provide short-term cluster foster-care for children who are abandoned or otherwise at risk, prior to being placed in foster-care or adopted in the community

Project Hope, Kokstad: the renovation and conversion of a former farmhouse and outbuildings to provide alternative shelter, food security and a base for skills development for streetchildren living off a nearby municipal refuse site

Provision of Shelter Support for Home-based Care:

Avocating home-based care: BESG is working with agencies and communities in Bongweni, Kokstad and in Inanda, Durban to investigate ways of providing shelter support for families who provide care to individuals either affected or infected by HIV/AIDS

Sam Club, Inanda, Durban: Investigation into ways in which creche supervisors can be assisted through shelter support. Incidence of creche supervisors providing permanent care for children whose parents are no longer able to fulfill the role is increasing. A pre-feasibility study is being undertaken to assess the support alternatives available with a view to identify a suitable approach.

Community Family Care:

Development of Community Family Homes, Cato Manor, Durban: In partnership with Durban Children Society, the development and design of family homes in community areas where orphaned children are cared for in a family environment. The family homes being piloted accommodate a maximum of six children who are cared for by community parents or mother.

Applied Research and Assessment:

Questions guiding this process include: What is the impact of AIDS on a household's ability to obtain and maintain accommodation? What institutional and community support is currently available to households whose vulnerability increases as a result of AIDS? How do community groups and local institutions respond to increasing demands for their services?

In December 2002, a scoping exercise was initiated to identify the range of housing and related resources for persons affected by AIDS. Following preliminary discussions with AIDS education and outreach organisations, the project was refined to examine the impact of the current financial and regulatory environment on the capacity of housing responses and social service provision. The document is available from BESG and on www.usn.org.za.

Two research projects undertaken by BESG to date are:

- The impact of illness and death on coping and adaptive strategies of poor households.
- The effect of HIV/AIDS on chronic and transitory homeless: A profile of the impact of HIV/AIDS on street-children.

Advocacy and Policy Development

In November 1999, the KZN Provincial Department of Housing issued Policy Guidelines for AIDS Housing as a component of the Transitional Housing Subsidy. The Policy covers three areas: Cluster homes or children's villages for "AIDS orphans"; Transitional housing for adults or children who lose a breadwinner; Provision of facilities for home-based care where families are prepared to assist People with AIDS (PWAs) or orphans of AIDS.

The majority of children infected with or affected by HIV/AIDS continue to live in their communities. Statutory and NGO welfare service providers support the extended family and community care approach, which is reflected in the government's 1997 White Paper on Social Welfare.

While the KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Department of Housing acknowledges the de facto situation in its HIV/AIDS policy, and recognises the need to support such initiatives, it has not developed a subsidy mechanism, due to the perceived risk of widespread misuse of such funds.

In low-income households, fostering in the community routinely leads to overcrowding in inadequately sized, state-subsidised housing and overuse of basic sanitation, designed for a nuclear family unit. Resultant conditions become ideal for the spread of opportunistic infections and further exacerbate vulnerability.

Consequently, a proposal for a new subsidy instrument is being developed. It is intended to provide a one-room home extension and/or additional toilet facility for foster parents or carers recognised by the Department of Welfare.

Technical support to welfare service-providers and CBOs

It has been recognised that a focus on housing limits the range of interventions that can be supported by welfare service-providers and CBOs, most of whom are involved in home-based care training, counselling and palliative programmes. Effective partnerships formed between BESG and NGO / community-based service-providers have given them access to technical expertise so as to conceptualise, realise and sustain projects that need a physical base. Examples include:

- Buthokuhle Shelter, Slangspruit: reconstruction of cr?che for the Slangspruit Community Child Care Committee, in partnership with Thandanani Association

- Umvoti AIDS Centre: advice (to date) on acquisition and conversion of a former Sappi barn and residential buildings for a training/drop-in advice centre-

- Dambuza Clinic: technical support to refurbish an abandoned clinic for use as a drop-in advice, counselling and community support centre by a consortium of CINDI NPOs

- Grannies and Orphans Project: technical support to PADCA (Pmb Care of the Aged) to establish a day-care and respite facility for grandmothers caring for extended family orphans

Contact Details for the Built Environment Support Group (BESG): Telephone: 031 260 2267 / Facsimile: 031 260 1236.

(Nurses Group) From left: Sisters Thandi Sikhakhane, Prikashi Mekhraj, Thandi Cele and Kezia Mgwenya

Reportback on University of KwaZulu-Natal's HIV/AIDS Nursing Workshop

The University of KwaZulu-Natal's School of Nursing, in partnership with Partners AIDS Research Centre (Boston University, Massachusetts, USA) held a three-day national Workshop for South African nurses during July 2002, focusing on HIV/AIDS management and care. This event followed a "Think Tank" entitled "South African Nurses' Response to HIV/AIDS" held in February 2002, and covered:

Representatives were invited from the KZN Department of Health, health service areas and other tertiary institutions from across SA and the USA. The key speakers were:

Professor Donna Gallagher - Associate in Family Care, University of Massachusetts Medical Centre, USA
Sheila Davis - Adult Nurse practitioner in AIDS Research Outreach from Massachusetts Hospital, USA
Dr Patricia McInerney - Senior Lecturer, University of KwaZulu-Natal School of Nursing
Dr Sarah Mahlangulu - Lecturer, University of KwaZulu-Natal School of Nursing

Analysis of the evaluations submitted by the delegates reveals that a high percentage responded positively to the workshop, commenting in particular on the knowledgeable and amiable speakers, informative presentations with both theoretical and practical grounding, the provision of comprehensive notes, the informal interaction and
feedback sessions, the opportunity to network with colleagues and the spirit of comradeship demonstrated.

Topics of special interest were anti-retroviral drug therapies and the infection/disease process (how the virus develops, matures and replicates). noting in particular the scientific knowledge and new information presented on the virus's life-cycle, the CD4 cell count, drug management and side-effects, and the clinical manifestation of the stages of HIV/AIDS. The delegates felt they gained a lot from realistic perspectives on prevention strategies, problems affecting youth, the formation of support groups as well as on drug adherence issues.

Participants indicated that the workshop focused more on knowledge than on skills development, but they were confident that they would be able to apply this knowledge in clinical practice. They also reported that they had gained more insight into the importance of accommodating cultural issues and religious beliefs when dealing with infected and affected people.

In general, the workshop inspired new ideas and thoughts amongst the delegates, challenging them to further their knowledge and sharpen their skills in the area of HIV/AIDS. There was consensus that much awareness of international and First World perspectives on the epidemic had been gained, which led delegates to suggest topics for further research in the South African context. Some felt that all academic and professional nurses should have been targeted as audience participants, and that follow-up workshops should include representatives from the Medical School and other health bodies such as health care managers, pharmacists, hospices, support groups, doctors and the Department of Health. They felt that responses from such individuals would have been very helpful during group sessions. About 21% of the delegates felt that South African nurses are ready for management of clients on anti-retroviral therapy, but they
highlighted the need for interactive fora to share ideas, information and experiences in this regard. All participants indicated a need for ongoing dissemination of updated information on the topics covered (especially on pharmacological management and palliative care skills) through workshops and reading material circulated at institutional
level.

In formulating a way forward, it had been agreed that an e-mail list of participants and presenters should be established to sustain communication. Setting up resource centres throughout the country was seen as imperative in order to provide broad access to updated information, and a role for HIVAN's in disseminating useful HIV/AIDS material for nurses was noted. The need for further, more widely advertised workshops of this nature was highlighted, as was that of incorporating HIV/AIDS knowledge and skills into training programmes.

(Note: An article by Lynne Altenroxel, published in The Star newspaper of 12 August 2002, covered a recent study by Wits University's Centre for Health Policy showing that only 15% of Gauteng's nurses could identify common AIDS-related conditions and that only 7% of these would know how to treat them. A mere 10% of frontline healthcare providers had received specific training in clinical management of HIV/AIDS).

The study had been commissioned by the Gauteng Health Department and conducted at 50 of the province's 405 clinics during May to August 2001. Despite these findings, however, the study concluded that there was "considerable potential" for integrating training in HIV/AIDS care into the primary healthcare system, as long as formal clinical support was provided. Also, 86% of the clinics surveyed are working with NGOs to provide such care, 54% are linked to HIV/AIDS support groups, and 38% are linked to either hospice or home-based care programmes. A heartening 94% had facilities for HIV counselling and testing, and 90% had essential antibiotics in stock.)

AIDS and the Law Training

South Africa continues to have one of the fastest growing HIV epidemics in the world, with an estimated 4,7 million people currently living with HIV. Furthermore although the legal system provides a protective framework that prohibits unfair discrimination, widespread abuses of rights occur. This is in many respects due to:

• low levels of legal literacy regarding HIV/AIDS;
  
• the high levels of discrimination and stigma which act as a disincentive to persons who wish to take legal action high may expose them to publicity;
  
• a lack of expertise and knowledge within the legal profession on HIV and the law; and
• law of legal support services such as NGOs to take on cases.

In order to enhance the exposure of law students to HIV and the law and to develop their capacity to respond to such issues the Faculty, in partnership with the Nelson Mandela Medical School, The Centre for HIV/AIDS Networking (HIVAN) and the AIDS Intervention Office piloted the above mentioned two-day training programme for intermediate and final year law students. This training took place at the Pietermaritzburg campus on 1 and 2 August 2002. Thirty students, from both Durban and Pietermaritzburg, received training.
Click on the icons to download more information on the training programme:

Every Little Thing Counts

People need not feel helpless - as UND students have shown

Late in last years second semester, third-year Psychology students at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban studying Service Learning as one of their modules had been feeling helpless and, often, hopeless about the magnitude of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in our province. In one of the prescribed readings for the course, Alan Whiteside and Clem Sunters book "AIDS - The Challenge for South Africa", the authors state:

"The AIDS challenge is enormous. But people must not feel powerless. It is all about action on many different fronts. Before this battle is over, there will be many ordinary people who will become heroes and heroines in their communities ... AIDS presents another challenge: to expose the proposition that the disease is unstoppable, untreatable and undetectable for what it is - a total myth. The reality is that every little thing counts."(pp145 - 146).

Inspired by this text and dismayed at the way in which poverty exacerbates the difficulty of coping with HIV/AIDS, the students came up with a plan. Their objective was to regain some sense of psychological control over these circumstances by taking action. For a couple of weeks they prepared hundreds of tiny red ribbons to pin onto lapels, and in October they spent 45 minutes early in the day on campus, selling them to staff and other students. They raised over R2000.

The students decided to donate these funds to the Hillcrest AIDS Centre to sponsor the distribution of natural immune-boosting remedies to HIV-positive individuals who have no means of purchasing them (and who consequently would not be able to afford any other treatment). The cheque was presented to HIV-positive AIDS activist Ann Leon by student representative Romy Orator at a campus function on 5th November 2001.

The students lecturer, Kerry Frizelle, who is also Co-ordinator of Campus Support and Outreach for HIVAN, is understandably proud of her learners. "The Red Ribbon Drive," she says, "was their own initiative and their personal response to their feelings of helplessness in the face of the horrifying statistics with which they were confronted."

Partnering up - in a good way: Peer Educator Training

Source: Judith King - HIVAN (first published in the Daily News, 18 October 2001 and reprinted here with kind permission of The Daily News)

The student training group

While politicians prevaricate and the media muse over accurate facts about the dimensions of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in South Africa, health and social workers on the ground have little time to niggle over numbers.

With local authorities beginning to investigate alternatives to burial because no more land is available for cemeteries, and ordinary people losing count of the number of funerals theyve attended in the last year, the need for united action at all levels is emerging as a decisive social response to the disease.

The high levels of HIV prevalence in KwaZulu-Natal, in particular, demand an integrated, localised strategy of research, training and intervention. Recognising this and the efficacy of grass-roots initiatives, the University of KwaZulu-Natals Campus HIV/AIDS Support Unit (an initiative of HIVAN, the Centre for HIV/AIDS Networking), has launched a rolling programme of Peer Education Training for its students. Through a series of three- to four-hour workshops held over a few months, student volunteers acquire accurate information and referral advice about the epidemic, develop self-awareness and peer-group sharing techniques, and generally explore their own experiences of the core issues underpinning the voracious spread of HIV/AIDS in our province.

Prof Suzanne Leclerc-Madlala, who heads the Campus HIV/AIDS Support Unit and organised the Peer Education Training, sees this type of communication plan as a vital first tier in a larger strategy to address the spread of HIV/AIDS. According to her, what is needed in the fight against AIDS is a multi-pronged approach:
For too long we have focused on narrowly conceived notions of counselling, based on Western psychological models of cognition and behaviour, hoping that somehow we could counsel out such things as the denial and stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS, she explains. It is clear that this method has failed to prevent or mitigate the rapid rate of new infections in Africa. One thing we do know is that people start thinking about behaviour change and safer sexual practices when they and their peers start talking about these things. Peer education can be regarded as the prompt to get them talking.

Peer education is a vital weapon in the fight against this disease, facilitator Nthombifuthi Mtshali told the 18-strong group of students attending the first session held in September 2001. Mtshali, of the Provincial AIDS Action Unit in Pietermaritzburg, is a counselling professional who, with disarming directness, humour and warmth, immediately engaged the students in lively self-expression and debate.

Most of the attendees were drawn from the Universitys Faculty of Community and Development Disciplines (CaDD), so their interest in becoming trained as peer-educators fell neatly in line with the direction of their studies and personal career choices.

I see a definite need in my community for this kind of intervention, said one. People need to speak to someone on their own level if theyre going to seek help at all. Agreed another: Lateral as opposed to top-down learning just makes more sense.

One student did not underestimate the responsibility inherent in the role: To be a friend, an available person, is greater than just being an authority on the subject and lecturing to people about the disease.

Mtshali was very clear on this point when outlining the components of the training: Being a Peer Educator requires courage, flexibility, complete openness, time and personal energy, she warned. Its essential that you develop the skills for reacting without judgement and for focusing totally on the other person. But your reward will come in knowing that you can make them realise something new, something that could save their lives, and if nothing else, give them affirmation and acceptance for who they really are.

Peer Education as a formal methodology involves training individuals to act as nodes of information, arming them with accurate facts about the epidemic for dissemination to fellow students and others in their immediate sphere of influence. The training does not equip them to provide advanced counselling, but rather to encourage discussion amongst peers, to listen effectively, to offer information about prevention strategies and to refer peers to reliable sources of formal treatment and support. The training process itself involves participatory methods of sharing information and experiences, drawing on the trainees own backgrounds and value systems, and helping them to evaluate these so that their responses to commonly held myths and facts around HIV/AIDS are informed with both pragmatism and sensitivity.

During the Introduction to the session, one student described her view of the training as a mutually beneficial process: The more you share, the more you learn its a two-way development. Mtshali endorsed this perception during the workshop: In being here, at this session, you are reaching out, being compassionate, giving; this takes you further along your own journey it unfolds you, strengthens you, shows you that everyone must be their unique selves because our individual talents are the spice that the world needs.

The emphasis on self-awareness and self-acceptance is clearly a crucial building-block for bringing participants to a point at which their capacity for engagement with the best and the worst in human psychology is unfaltering. The lesson of this virus, said Mtshali, is not that you should be faithful merely to another its that you should be faithful to yourself. If I protect myself, Im protecting my partner. For the rest of it, trust only goes as far as what you have in front of you!

As the session continued, group-work generated some energetic displays of opinion social realities became points for philosophical argument and critical analysis of personal influences; levels of awareness about child abuse, gender inequity, the right to individual choice and a range of value judgements were brought into focus. Mtshali used these responses to illustrate the importance of knowledge in dispelling fear.

As the workshop wound up, one student posed a compelling question: After 10 years of gathering and disseminating knowledge about HIV/AIDS, why has making the information available not resulted in behaviour change? Why is the infection rate still increasing so rapidly? Mtshali replied that one can lead others to information, but only the individual can decide to live differently. She also suggested that since HIV touches every single aspect of human society, whether through economics, politics, legal systems, cultural norms, education or religion, the need for a holistic approach to the epidemic has never been greater. This is why the biomedical and the social sciences are now working together instead of in separate camps, she explained, and people within and across sectors are partnering up.

And so it seems that the gift within the lesson of HIV/AIDS is packaged in two ways: while every individual is ultimately responsible for his or her own choices, and although, finally, it is the urge for self-protection that will ensure the safety of others, it is only through concerted union between individuals and groups in society that change will occur.

Perhaps this is not so much perplexing as it is challenging, for what it really involves is the setting up of barricades against infection by removing the walls around our hearts. As Mtshali said in closing: The YOU is the real answer if it doesnt begin with you, nothing happens.

*The HIV/AIDS Peer Educator Training Programme is a key project of the Universitys Campus HIV/AIDS Support Unit (a HIVAN Campus Support and Outreach initiative). Certificates of Attendance will be issued at the end of each course. Students from all Faculties are invited to participate in future courses.

For further details, please contact: Kerry Frizelle on (031) 260 2861 or via e-mail on [email protected].