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RAISA YEBO March 2004 - HIV, AIDS and Stigma
Regional AIDS Initiative of Southern Africa/VSO
March 2004

Dear Friends and Partners,

HIV & AIDS presents challenges to all sectors of society. However the need to work and support the HIV & AIDS response from the education sector is especially important for the following reasons: basic education is one of the most effective ways of preventing HIV; education is key to reducing the vulnerability of girls; HIV & AIDS is depriving considerable number of children from education; HIV & AIDS is having a considerable impact on the education system itself. (HIV/AIDS and Education in Africa Debra Meyer. Rand Afrikaans University, 2003)

Since RAISA began 229 volunteers have been supporting education through working with organisations within Southern Africa and 75% of those volunteers have undertaken integration of mainstreaming activities with their colleagues and communities. Activities have included the setting up of work place policies, web based projects around HIV & AIDS within schools, AIDS clubs, setting up AIDS awareness weeks, prevention messages in the class room and life skills training adapted from Stepping Stones. Volunteers throughout the region have proactively used schools as a base for facilitating community action around HIV & AIDS involving both the children and teachers.

So far, most of the country’s education programmes have focused on prevention, concentrating on dissemination of factual information about the disease, statistics and prevention around the ABC model. This has had limited impact leading to minimal behaviour change, as demonstrated by the continued rise in prevalence rates. Repeatedly we hear that large sectors of society still do not understand critical issues related to HIV & AIDS and how to mitigate further spread.

One of the biggest changes within education and prevention programmes in Namibia during the last four years is the realisation that messages and programmes need to be targeted to address the needs of those they are aimed at.

We need to look at new messages and approaches, which, to be effective, must reflect and address cultural concerns, language differences, gender issues, disabilities and society norms as well as be suitable for the age group they are aimed at.

AIDS Awareness Week in Schools
The Ministry of Basic Education, Sport and Culture introduced AIDS Awareness Week into the curriculum in 2002. It was initially seen as a way of addressing HIV & AIDS education and awareness in schools. The lead people in this campaign are the Regional AIDS Committees in Education (RACE) Coordinators in of each region.

Activities for this week have included, drama competitions, speakers from various organisations who are living with HIV or AIDS, essay competitions about issues around HIV & AIDS and visits to VCT centres. VSO education volunteers often play an active role in facilitating events and activities during this week in their schools.

Example of a Volunteer Placement
Denise Cosgrove – HIV-AIDS Coordinator, Region AIDS Coordination Committee (RACOC), Karas.

During field visits Denise became aware that many people living within her region had limited access to education and therefore were unable to read or write even their mother tongue let alone English. They were therefore often unable to access mainstream information about HIV & AIDS prevention. One of her responsibilities as RACOC coordinator is to provide appropriate information, education and communication (IEC) materials for the entire population of the region, and devising new ways of meeting this demand.

RAISA plans to continue working in this area and is developing placements within the Ministry of Health and Social Services supporting the development of Information and Education Communication (IEC) materials.

(For more information please contact lisa.davidson@vsoint.org)

Mufudzi Wakanaka, a faith based organization operating under the auspices of the Presbyterian Church in Zimbabwe received SGF during 2003 which went towards enhancing their community HIV prevention efforts.

Mufudzi Wakanaka, which means "good shepherd", focuses on mitigating the impact of HIV & AIDS on orphans and other children made vulnerable in one way or another by the epidemic. Such children include those that have lost one or both parents, children whose parents/guardians are chronically ill, as well as children that are living with HIV & AIDS. An area that they have had to pay special attention to is the impact of HIV & AIDS on education.

Because they collaborate with schools in efforts to keep OVC in school, they have seen HIV & AIDS impact on both sides of the coin. The education system is daily being robbed of qualified and experienced teachers who are dying of HIV & AIDS related conditions. Although information is limited on teacher infection and mortality, some schools lose as many as 3 teachers per annum. As in other sectors, the number of man-hours lost while teachers are on sick leave, attending to sick family members, or attending funerals of family, colleagues and friends are higher than ever before. This has severe negative implications on the quality of education for the pupils. The size of school enrolments is on the decline due to the high number of orphaned children who are dropping out of school because they can no longer afford to pay school fees.

On the other hand, some of the affected children simply lose the motivation to go to school after losing a parent to HIV & AIDS due to fear of stigma, or failure to cope with the trauma. This underscores the role of psychosocial support interventions that Mufudzi Wakanaka initiated during 2002, comprising counselling, camps and life-skills workshops for the children.

They also fundraise in order to keep the children in school. To date over 65 children have received education assistance, while 7 children have been to Masiye Camp for exposure to psychosocial support.

(For more information please contact vsozim@zol.co.zw)

Many schools are already experiencing the effects of the epidemic, as teachers, learners, and members of their families fall ill. Before the epidemic is brought under control, such effects will become harsher and more widespread. Almost every educator will eventually be teaching some learners who have HIV.  Illness disrupts learning and teaching, as learners who are ill fall behind with their studies, and in many cases are not able to attend school.

Although RAISA South Africa no longer places volunteers in education, we will continue to provide support in other ways. An example of this is Siyaphila Home Based Care Siyaphila HBC was founded by a woman named Beauty Bala who runs this project from her house and she has a day care center for children there. She also has 4 orphans in her care in her house. During the day there are about 20 children younger and older than six. All are vulnerable children; some of them are orphans (due to AIDS).

The nearest school is some distance away and without support the children older than 6 won't have the opportunity to go to school. Through a small grant from RAISA, these children are now sponsored to get the school bus to school and continue their education.

RAISA South Africa is currently creating a placement that will help the Open Learning Systems Trust (OLSET) extend their Education Programme, with HIV&AIDS training that will be aimed at school children. OLSET focuses on schools (primary) with their education via radio. The radio learning constituency comprises over 1 million children and almost 27000 teachers across seven of South Africa's provinces.

Until now most of the education was the English language, but OLSET wants to use their medium for more.

One of the areas they will focus on is training in HIV&AIDS. The volunteer will be involved in setting up a curriculum and do research for the HIV&AIDS programme and advising on content and structure of the training. The volunteer will also be looking at the production of the education materials that comes with the HIV&AIDS (education) programme.

(For more information please contact carine.munting@vsoint.org)

This article was written by Prince Mulondo Yosia, HIV & AIDS Curriculum Educator in Zambezia, in the central region, which has the highest HIV & AIDS prevalence (16.7%) in Mozambique.

The HIV Epidemic and the Education Sector
In Zambézia, there are many ways in which the HIV epidemic intersects with the educational sector. The alarming reduction in institutional and human capacities is one of the signs that HIV infection in the education sector is higher than in the rest of the general adult population of Zambezia.

What is being done to reduce the impact of HIV/AIDS in the education sector?

• Specific life skills programmes for young women. These assist them not only to stay in school but to also resist sexual exploitative relationships, including with men in authority in the educational system.
• Workshops with teachers on how to incorporate HIV & AIDS into their lessons.
• Sensitising school leaders, influential community and religious leaders about sexual education and HIV & AIDS.
• Promotion of sports activities in school so that young people can learn how to spend their free time and avoid activities that escalate the spread of HIV.
• Use of commemorative days such as Valentine’s Day to pass on HIV & AIDS messages.
• Establishing School Youth Corners where young people go for counselling and to get information about HIV & AIDS.
• Developing of an evaluation/reporting system to facilitate monitoring and evaluation.
• Improving networking with NGOs and other organizations such as Save the Children, World Vision, VSO-RAISA Mozambique, Project HOPE, IBIS and other Government institutions like the Ministries of Youth and Sports, Gender and Women affairs and Communication.

Lessons learnt:

• Young people need the teachers to discuss sex education not only in class but also in extracurricular activities. This facilitates the balancing of the equation: THINK = SPEAK = ACT = FEEL. It’s noted though that some teachers are not prepared to deal with the sensitive issues surrounding HIV transmission.
• Monitoring and evaluation of the exiting programmes is very important.
• Working cultures/traditions are different and unique and therefore require flexibility in planned programmes.
• Networking facilitates work and helps in maximising the use of the limited resources.
• The spirit of volunteering needs to be reinforced among teachers. Often activities to do with HIV & AIDS, where there is no payment, are not regarded as important.
• Music, dance and drama are very important in passing on HIV & AIDS messages.
• Most of the methods of HIV/AIDS education employed so far have been focusing only on symptoms.

Conclusion:
Education is seen as having a key role in the transformation of developing countries and thus a critical sector in the fight against the HIV epidemic. This implies that there is clearly an important role for the education sector in Zambézia to constantly evaluate and use lessons learnt to ensure that HIV/AIDS activities do make a difference to HIV prevention and increasingly to care and support.

(For more information please contact etelvina.mehanjane@vsoint.org)

Mzake ndi Mzake Training in Malawi
Malawi's total HIV+ population is around 850,000. Out of these 60 000- 80 000 are children. This is Malawi's window of hope and if Malawi works toward keeping the remaining children population free from HIV, then there is hope for a better HIV & AIDS situation.

VSO Malawi is working with a number of organisations that are addressing the issues related to HIV & AIDS, the children and education. One of the interventions that VSO Malawi is working on is through the teacher training colleges. In these colleges, VSO volunteers are providing HIV & AIDS training through the use of an HIV & AIDS training manual called Mzake ndi Mzake (peer to peer) to the student teachers. The rationale of training the teachers is to provide knowledge to the students that they would use in imparting the HIV & AIDS knowledge to their pupils when they graduate.

In some colleges, the training is part of the club activities where interested students could register and participate in the activities. In others, the training is conducted to all the students with time provided for in the timetable for a few weeks. In other teacher training colleges, volunteers have also trained local teacher trainers and in times of the gaps with no VSO volunteers, the local teacher trainers carry out the activities.

It is also interesting to note that the activities have expanded to some teacher development centres where HIV & AIDS are incorporated in the in service training with already qualified teachers and primary school education advisors.

The programme has its own challenges. One of these is the availability of training manuals to be given to the student teachers to use in their respective primary schools. Another challenge is to monitor and evaluate its impact and the extent to which it reaches the classroom pupils whenever the student teachers graduate. The small grant fund has been providing support to volunteers to assist them in producing manuals for the student teachers to use in their respective schools.

(For more information please contact steve.tahuna@vsoint.org)

The Mathematics of HIV & AIDS Resources for Teachers
Zambia's Ministry of Education has instigated many worthy programmes for teaching pupils about HIV & AIDS, but these often encounter problems in achieving widespread adoption and implementation. Dominic Eastham, a former Maths teacher at Chassa Secondary School, felt a more pragmatic approach was needed. He used his 2½-years experience of teaching in Zambia to write a guide for integrating HIV & AIDS education into maths lessons that put the needs of teachers first. 'The Mathematics of HIV & AIDS' is designed to be flexible and easy to use; it consists of a series of maths questions set within the context of HIV & AIDS that do not require any special training to use or require teachers to change their normal teaching style.

Using the guide has practical advantages for teachers - using a contemporary issue will engage pupils more with the subject and results should improve - but at the same time, teaches pupils about HIV & AIDS. For example, by drawing a histogram to show the age distribution of AIDS cases, pupils are not just learning about statistics, but can see for themselves that casual contact and mosquitoes do not transmit HIV. In terms of HIV & AIDS education, the guide emphasizes that young people are at risk and the comparative risks of different sexual behavior, as well as the basic facts about the epidemic and prevention.

A first draft of the guide has received warm praise from VSO and Zambian teachers alike, and Dominic is currently working on a final draft and a proposal to get 'The Mathematics of HIV & AIDS' on the desk of every maths teacher in Zambia. The guide also has the potential to be used in other countries - it can be easily adapted by simply changing the country-specific data used in the questions. With luck, the guide will allow many more people to join the fight against HIV & AIDS.

(For more information please contact Augustine.chella@vsoint.org)

RESOURCES

The HIV/AIDS Impact on Education Clearinghouse is an interactive portal dedicated to collecting and disseminating documentation on HIV & AIDS and its impact on education. It is designed as a tool for ministries, educational institutions, international agencies, consultants and other organisations to disseminate their own research and learn from the research of others. In addition to finding the latest studies and research, you can access related websites, participate in discussion forums and contact members of the site http://hivaidsclearinghouse.unesco.org/ev.php

Education and HIV & AIDS: A Sourcebook of HIV & AIDS Prevention Programmes.
This Sourcebook aims to support efforts by countries to strengthen the role of education sector in the prevention of HIV & AIDS. It was developed in response to numerous requests for a simple forum to help countries share practical experiences in designing and implementing programmes that are targeted at school age children. For more information contact www.schoolsandhealth.org or by email eservice@worldbank.org.

Guidelines for Educators – Department of Education, South Africa: www.education.pwv.gov.za

OLSET, Open learning systems Education Trust, www.olset.org.za

Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.

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