Tackling HIV/Aids across borders: SA initiates regional partnership

Together with eight country partners, the Soul City Institute has initiated a complex and innovative cross border initiative aimed at reducing levels of HIV and Aids in the region. 
 
The scale of the project is extraordinary. It is the largest prevention communication programme in the Southern African region. 
* It has researched, developed and distributed 27 different booklets dealing with HIV and Aids and related health issues, with a print run of over 22 million across eight countries. These books have been developed in English and 13 other indigenous languages.
* 14 local television series have been broadcast in seven countries and have been produced combining the existing Soul City TV edutainment drama with local documentaries, talk shows and magazine programs.
* The Regional Programme has produced 11 radio drama series in 15 languages in five countries with a potential audience of 40 million people.

This impressive partnership is working with local NGOs in Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe to develop localized television, radio and print materials. The programme is also building skills in the region to develop quality and effective health communication and the capacity building programme is also bearing fruit.

Over the past five years, more than 240 health and media practitioners across the region have been trained in a wide range of skills including research, advocacy and print, radio and television production.

Skills enhanced

An independent evaluation states, ‘Through skills enhancement and rollout of media products, the Soul City Regional Programme has positively transformed behaviour change communication with a focus on health communication in the region.'

Rayhana Rassool, the Soul City regional radio manager explains, “Our approach uses mass media entertainment education programmes to get key health messages across. We have raised the bar on quality in radio production. For example, in Zambia the producers had been working on analog for 13 years and we trained them in digital editing. They now produce their radio dramas digitally and the quality is dramatically improved.”

Says John Molefe, Soul City spokesperson, “Our approach in the region has not been to reproduce the Soul City brand in all the countries, but rather to work with local partners and to train them to develop ‘home-grown' communication interventions.”

Head of the Regional Programme, Harriet Perlman, believes this approach works best.  “Effective communication is a key factor in the control of HIV and Aids. It is also widely recognized that locally developed health promotion that is culturally relevant and appropriate, is most effective in creating change. It is the combination of locally driven programmes with a coordinated regional focus and skills building, that makes this project unique.”

Now the project is taking an exciting new step

At a graduation ceremony in Johannesburg this week, eleven students from nine countries received diplomas in television scriptwriting. They all successfully completed an eight month accredited course in writing edutainment television drama. The writers from outside South Africa are the first in their countries to successfully complete such a course.

Soul City worked closely with training organisation, Consulting Dynamix to provide SAQA accredited training in film and television.  Learners were closely monitored and assessed, and achieved the required criteria for a level 6 and 7 qualification under the South African Qualification Authority (SAQA). A group of highly experienced writers and producers in the television industry, acted as mentors throughout the course.

Busang Motsumi, a writer from Botswana had this to say of the course: “The training was very important and is vital for everyone whether you have gone to a TV production training school or not. The importance lay in the focus on edutainment, which is lacking in most of our African TV programming.  I would recommend the training to anyone who would like to start writing for edutainment purposes focusing on health communication. I learnt a lot and I feel confident that I will improve writing for TV drama in Botswana.”

Busang and other writers will certainly have the opportunity to raise the bar on television drama in their countries. The Regional Programme is soon to begin a second phase of television training aimed at producers. Each country is sending a producer and director team for training in television production, which will culminate in each country producing a half hour drama based on the script the writers developed.

These films will form part of a nine country series of self-contained films. Each will focus on a different story, about living with HIV and Aids in the region.

For many trainee writers the course gave them an opportunity not only to build their own skills but also to be become part of a community of professional television writers in the region. As Welile Masuku from Swaziland says, “I have done script writing briefly at university but nothing as intense and as rewarding as sharing ideas with professionals with more experience in the field and with other writers from the region.”

The programme is funded by EU, DFID, Royal Netherlands Embassy, Irish Aid and BP.

Regional Programme partners and brands

* Botswana: Population Services International (PSI) - Choose Life
* Lesotho: Phela Health and Development Communications - Phela
* Malawi: Population Services International PSI – Pachachere
* Mozambique: Comunicação para Saúde - N'weti
* Namibia: Namibian Red Cross Society - Desert Soul
* Swaziland: Schools Health and Population Programmes (Shape) - Lusweti
* Zambia: Zambia Centre for Communication Programmes (ZCCP) - Kwatu
* Zimbabwe: Action Magazine - Action