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Positive
Women: Access to Care and Treatment Theatre Campaign - Zimbabwe
Joshua
Nyampimbi, Nhimbe Trust
September 12, 2006
http://www.comminit.com/experiences/pds2007/experiences-4262.html
Summary
This theatre campaign aims to promote gender equality and to advocate
for improvements in the availability and accessibility of care and
treatment services on the part of resource-poor HIV-positive women
in Gokwe South Rural District of Zimbabwe. Live performance is used
in an effort to create community awareness about the gender discrimination
that affects access to treatment for many rural women. Positive
Women: Access to Care and Treatment is an initiative of the Nhimbe
Trust (NT), a theatre for development (TFD) non-governmental organisation
(NGO) based in Bulawayo.
Main
Communication Strategies
This theatre-based project was organised at the behest of Yamuranai
Support Group, a coalition of HIV-positive women based in Gokwe
South Rural district in the Midlands province of Zimbabwe. In 2005,
this group requested technical and financial support from NT to
carry out a theatre-based advocacy campaign in order to address
HIV/AIDS challenges in their area. Thus, the programme was participatory
from its initial phases. Project activities included:
- Advocacy
theatre skills training;
- Interactive
theatre performances;
- Documentation
- Monitoring
and evaluation
Following this
process, between March and October 2005, the play "Non But
Us" was produced and performed at 20 venues, reaching a total
audience of 15,645. The audience included chiefs, headmen, councillors
and parliamentarians, NGO representatives, government officials,
and members of the business community.
Besides advocacy
and awareness raising through the use of theatre and performance,
Positive Women: Access to Care and Treatment draws on the following
strategies:
- strengthening
links between HIV-positive women at the district level, and enabling
them to advocate on common concerns and on their own behalf;
- increasing
individual HIV-positive women's abilities to engage local decision
makers at every level;
- encouraging
HIV-positive women to tell their stories;
- promoting
the role of HIV-positive women in tackling gender inequalities,
and in supporting care and treatment initiatives for people with
HIV/AIDS (PWHA);
- strengthening
the confidence of HIV-positive women through efforts to build
assertive behaviour, teamwork, and activism;
- challenging
gender inequalities that make women and girls more vulnerable
to HIV; and
- engaging
in networking and partnership in order to identify opportunities
and strategies for increasing the sharing of experiences and best
practices around these issues.
Development
Issues
Women, Rights, HIV/AIDS, Gender.
Key
Points
According to organisers (citing figures from the Zimbabwe Ministry
of Health Report, 2004): "Zimbabwe has the fourth highest number
of people living with HIV in the world, that is 24, [or] 6% of sexually
active adults. As the country moves towards the third decade of
the HIV/AIDS scourge, there is a general shift in the nature of
the epidemic from an HIV, to an AIDS epidemic. The implications
are that, more people are falling sick, becoming less productive
and requiring more care and treatment. In the recent past, HIV/AIDS
were more pronounced in urban areas, and now the epidemic has rapidly
moved into rural areas and the infection rates are now between three
and five times higher in women then in men. A number [of] economic,
cultural and literacy factors have resulted in wide spread disparities
in access to care and treatment in rural Zimbabwe such as Gokwe
south. For example, during the last few years, bilateral aid to
Zimbabwe has decreased notably."
Visit the Nhimbe
Trust fact
sheet
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