In the beginning of June 2010, South Africa was ready, excited one door to the next for a couple hours with nobody to give us clear instructions, and then directed towards the top part of the stadium, away from the stage that we thought we would be on. The environment was vibrant; yet we felt like we stood in the middle of a midst of confusion, unsure of where, when, what was going on.

The first few visits were like this one, and even though it would have been nice and less stressful to have had a little more guidance, as time went on we learned to take the experience for what it was, which in itself meant a lot. The space we were in was designated for children, and there were other spots located for face paint, air castles, footballs, etc. The group would warm up and then perform a few tricks; these included juggling, summersaults and human pyramids.

The rest of the children gathered around and proved to be a respectful and awestruck audience. The fact that the performers were children just like them, same age and all, made them even more interested, and this was demonstrated when after the performance they would come close and timidly attempt to try a juggle or mix with the Sinani artists. This was a self-esteem boost especially for the children of the social circus, for the way the other children started looking at them was as rewarding as it is positive. The 10 days of which Sinani formed part of the Umlazi fan fest entertainment were an absolute beautiful experience. Many smiles and laughs playing were achieved for the children of South Africa (both for those performing and for those watching). Even though the group enjoyed less spotlight than maybe they would have initially liked; they got the chance to make the community and the other children part of the entertainment too, making the whole thing one big circus of fun and solidarity.

Thank you on behalf of Sinani for giving the children this opportunity, thank you for choosing a local group, and for realizing the importance of helping the young: because of their need of play, because the teamwork and unity they must share, and because they were able to be part of this successful world cup as well.

Sincerely,

Sinani KwaZulu-Natal Programme for Survivors of Violence

Author: Caroline Maurer (SINANI Intern)
Pictures: Sven Schlueter

The HIV and Aids Programme aims to build the capacity of community based structures to prevent further HIV infection and to provide holistic support to families affected by HIV and Aids. It has a particular focus on reducing stigma towards people affected by HIV and Aids.
 

HIV Prevention Project:

helping leadership and community based structures to design and implement creative projects addressing local dynamics to promote behaviour change The recent CINDI Halala! Conference highlighted the strong message coming through the sector working with children affected by HIV and AIDS – that the best thing one can do for a child is to keep his or her parents alive as long as possible. Sinani wholeheartedly believes in this message of prevention. While the organisation has a successful programme on supporting children, families and communities already affected by HIV/AIDS, violence and poverty, there is a firm belief that preventing exposure to these problems is both ethically important and economically effective.   The following proposal concept briefly outlines the experiences of the organisation in working on prevention of further transmission of leaders, adults, youth and children to HIV.  

Local Research and Problem Analysis Many people in KwaZulu-Natal have fairly good basic information about HIV and AIDS transmission. There are still some misconceptions and specific areas of confusion about transmission. There is still a lot of denial about the problem, based on fears about status and negative stigma towards people living with HIV and AIDS.  People are struggling to practice safe sex because of the following local dynamics:

• Married women struggling to introduce condom use in relationships even when they know their husbands are being unfaithful
• Polygamy and women who’s husbands have died being married to their husbands’ brother
• Caregivers (parents, grandparents etc) say that they do not know how to talk to children and youth about HIV and AIDS (even when they suspect a child or young person is at risk)
• Young women becoming involved in relationships with older men and or several men at once (because of economic reasons and peer pressure)
• Young women becoming pregnant in order to access the child care grant
• Substance abuse which youth report makes them forget to use condoms
• Identity as men (masculinity) is commonly linked to the idea of multiple sexual partners, not using condoms and not being involved in caring for others
• People who are positive report deliberately infecting others out of anger or to increase the pool of people who are infected (because of stigma)
• Awkwardness about introducing safe practices (eg using gloves when visiting a sick person, helping children to take care of open wounds when playing, even when they are known to be positive, how to tell a child that he or she is positive)
• Sexual acting out based on past unresolved experiences of trauma or abuse
• People not knowing their status and therefore having a reckless attitude (thinking they are probably positive)
• Peer pressure and sex starting at an earlier age
• Lack of direction or hope in life leading to reckless behaviour

 
People are still reluctant to go for testing:

• Because of stigma in the community and in families
• Because of fear about knowing one’s status
• Especially men seem to be reluctant
• Attitudes in local clinics affect testing (eg older women being chased away)

 
Proposed Focus Areas and Justification
  Explore locally appropriate ways of introducing safe sex practices, including:

• Ways of communicating about safe sex in relationships
• Locally appropriate ways of introducing safe sex practices
• Locally appropriate messages around condom use
• The development of the capacity of community based structures to introduce locally appropriate projects to introduce safe sex practices with adults, youth and children in the community
• Encouraging leadership to take up the challenge of addressing this problem locally
• Promoting testing as a way of ensuring safe practices based of whether you are positive or negative

 
Address some of the root causes of the spread of the disease through:

• Encouraging women to develop goals and clear direction of career and economic development to reduce dependency on older men, multiple relationships and the child care grant.
• Developing sense of direction and hope amongst youth to combat recklessness.
• Working on identity to reduce peer pressure and spirit of materialism which leads to increase risk.
• Work on reducing substance abuse amongst young men in particular
• Exploring concepts of masculinity and shifting ideas of manhood to include caring roles and protection amongst leaders, older men and young men.
• Helping people process feelings of anger, displaced aggression and sexual acting out

   
Reduce stigma towards people affected by HIV and AIDS through:

• Encouraging local support structures for people affected by HIV and AIDS
• Developing community messages and campaigns around attitudes to people affected by HIV and AIDS
• Addressing some of the root causes of stigma identified in the CINDI research on this topic (currently underway) through practical programme design and implementation

HIV Care and Support:

working with local community based structures to promote effective home based care, access to treatment and psychosocial support regarding the impact of HIV and Aids As agreed in consultation with community leadership Sinani aims to focus much of the energy on capacity building of Community Health Care Workers (CHCWs). Many of these structures had already approached Sinani for support with specific requests. We were able to meet these requests around:
 

• providing regular debriefing of CHCWs, since their workload is high and emotionally demanding
• trauma management and victim empowerment workshops (for their own experiences and emotional load)
• training in trauma management (how to support others in the community)
• linking some of the CHCWs (mainly in Mfume / Thoyana and Embo) with government departments
• linking them with local clinics to distribute medicines
• training in psychosocial support of vulnerable children
• supporting them to help community members access social grants

There have been additional requests to assist them with sensitive topics such as:

• discussing death and dying with families affected by illness
• raising awareness about HIV transmission at a family level
• further support on child care work (mainly with orphaned children)

Masculinity Project:

working with young men to promote constructive models of masculinity A new project has been piloted, focusing on young men’s perceptions of masculinity. There is much research to support that social models of masculinity affect gender attitudes and behaviour, HIV risk, exposure to violence etc. Medico International facilitated a one-day workshop with NGOs from other parts of the country. This exposed Sinani to this new topic. Sinani has started using a structured group workshop series from Instituto Promundo in Brazil, working with young men. This programme stimulates young men to question traditional ‘norms’ associated with masculinity and promotes both discussion and reflection about the ‘costs’ of traditional masculinity as well as the advantages of gender equitable behaviours, such as better relationships and care for their own health. After internal discussions, a group of 20 young men from Umbumbulu, Richmond and different communities around Durban (INK) were approached for their interest. These young men had been Sinani participants in other programmes and were chosen for their interest to start implementing similar programmes with high school boys or other young men in their areas at a later stage. An initial introductory meeting was held in October and there was much enthusiasm about the project idea. A residential three-day workshop was held from 30 October to 1 November, followed up by a one-day workshop on 17 November. The workshop curriculum proved to be key in raising difficult and painful issues. It created an atmosphere of trust and openness, where issues like ‘male honour’, ‘violence practised against me’, ‘violence I practice’, ‘diversity’ and ‘sexual violence’ could be discussed intensely and compassionately. Some examples of participants’ feedback during the workshop evaluation: “Eye opening”, “Enormous experience”, “Exciting”, “I Feel brave”, “Future leaders” , “Learned to listen”, “Not shy anymore”, “Liberated”, “Beautiful”. It is still early to evaluate the impact of this work, but it promises to be a key focus of the future work on gender aspects and HIV/AIDS. The networking with Instituto Promundo and Engendered Health, who are doing similar work inspired by the workshop curriculum, linked Sinani up to an international network of programmes working with men. A Sinani staff member was invited (and funded) to attend an international training and networking seminar in Tanzania at the end of 2006. 

 

Young Women’s Project:

working with young women to promote economic independence and healthy relationships 
   

Vulnerable Children’s Project:

supporting community based structures to provide practical and psychosocial support to children affected by loss and HIV and Aids The Vulnerable Children’s Project of Sinani aims to:

• Make communities safer places for children (reduce levels of organised, community and family violence)
• Promote economic development to ensure that families and children’s basic needs are met
• Promote healthy living (prevention of further transmission of HIV and development of community based support for people affected by HIV and AIDS) and psychosocial support to families most severely affected by HIV, AIDS, poverty and violence

 

The projects aim to: 

• Build community based structures which address the practical and psychosocial needs of children
• Promote family integration and psychosocial support of children by caregivers
• Provide specialised psychosocial support for children worst affected by violence, poverty and HIV/AIDS

The project focuses on work with Community Health Care Workers and CBOs which specialize in working with vulnerable children in their area.