South Africa
Siyayinqoba Beat It! Treatment Literacy Outreach Program
Activity Dates
2006 – ongoing
Activity Summary
 Community Health Media Trust (CHMT) has been providing HIV/AIDS treatment literacy training and information and fighting stigma and discrimination since 1999. Their vehicle for providing treatment literacy has been a magazine programme on national television and various products derived from the broadcast source material. The brand name for these products is Siyayinqoba Beat It! The programmes are presented by people living with HIV/AIDS and speak directly to an audience of people living with HIV/AIDS, their partners, families, friends and caregivers as well as health care workers.
With JHHESA, CHMT is integrating the Siyayinqoba Beat It! programme into as many established HIV/AIDS networks and their programmes as possible, thereby empowering people responding to HIV/AIDS to provide sustained treatment literacy education. The outreach programme leverages the publicity generated by the broadcast TV programme around the leading personalities (all of whom are living openly HIV) to promote treatment literacy.
Implementation
Treatment Literacy Practitioners (TLPs)
CHMT employs people living openly with HIV/AIDS as Treatment Literacy Practitioners (TLPs). Several TLPs are recruited from the Siyayinqoba Beat It! support groups. TLP responsibilities will include:
- To assist in determining the needs of partner organisations and developing programmes to meet these needs
- To visit sites according to the site visit schedule developed by the Project Coordinator and Project Manager
- To run Siyayinqoba Beat It! treatment literacy workshops to integrate this material and methodology into the work of the project officers working in the various programmes
- To support the public events which will show case Siyayinqoba Beat It! through members of the support group
- To create awareness of and support the Siyayinqoba Beat It! brand as a reliable source of scientific information on living positively with HIV
- To act as role models for openness to combat stigma and denial
- To promote positive prevention by training partners in VCT, STI treatment, MTCTP, PEP and medical circumcision, and promote other prevention by training partners in safer sex including condom use and non penetrative sex, delayed sexual activity, partner reduction, gender violence prevention, respect for human rights, and teaching responsibility of each person not to harm themselves or others
- To provide ongoing support to PLWHA groups and individuals identified in the roll-out of their programs through one-on-one counseling, group counseling and establishing support groups
- To supply the Project Coordinator with regular and consistent data on the work undertaken for purposes of evaluation and monitoring
Site Visits
The core activity of the outreach programme is a systematic series of site visits by Siyayinqoba Beat It! Treatment Literacy Outreach (TLP)workers. Their objectives for the visits are:
- Treatment literacy training with the staff of partner organisations
- Treatment literacy training with PLWHAs and others in the network of these organisations
- Public treatment literacy education in a number of engagements set up in conjunction with the network partner at each particular site
Public Events
CHMT holds public events with partners on particular HIV/AIDS focus days, such as World Aids Day, Condom Week and SA based HIV/AIDS conferences. Siyayinqoba Beat It! support group members who are not employed as TLPs are involved in driving these events on an ad hoc basis. Objectives of these public events include:
- Role modelling openness and combating stigma and denial
- Promoting positive prevention
- Supporting the ongoing treatment literacy work of the TLPs
- Promoting safer sex, VCT, delay of sexual debut, and partner reduction within a framework of respect for human rights and the responsibility of each person to not do harm to others
- Creating awareness and supporting the Siyayinqoba Beat It! brand as a reliable source of scientific information on living positively with HIV
Tailoring Outreach Programmes
Outreach programmes are tailored to meet the needs of the partner organisations CHMT engages with. One of the advantages of the Siyayinqoba Beat It! series is the comprehensive range of the material produced. The programmes cover core messages like the treatment of opportunistic infections and ARVs, as well issues of gender, sex, testing, disclosure, sexual orientation, human rights and rights at work, traditional healing, and alternative therapies. CHMT prepared a core focus that they recommend every organisation include. Additional areas are selected by the organisation. Current topics in Siyayinqoba Beat It! include:
- Intro to HIV Part A
- Intro to HIV Part B
- HIV and the Immune System
- ARVs for Adults
- TB and HIV
- ARV Side Effects
- Sex and the Positive Person VCT
- ARVs for Kid
- Kids Without ARVs
- Adherence
- Opportunistic Infections of the Mouth
- Opportunistic Infections of the Skin
- Opportunistic Infections of the Respiratory System
- Opportunistic Infections of the Nervous System
- Rules for Better Living with HIV
- Nutritional Supplements
- Women and HIV
- PMTCT
- Palliative Care
- Human Rights
Print and Radio Support
CHMT is developing supplementary treatment literacy print materials for use at all sites participating in the outreach programme. Additionally, reinforcing radio material will
be used on community radio stations throughout the country. Both the print and radio material will be printed/broadcast in English with key points translated into IsiZulu, Xhosa, SeSotho and Afrikaans for maximum learning impact.
Audiences
People living with HIV and AIDS and their partners, families, friends, colleagues, caregivers, and health workers
Partners
 Community Health Media Trust (CHMT) , Mindset Health Channel, Love Life Youth Friendly Clinics and Youth Centers, Social Change Assistance Trust, TAC Treatment Literacy Practitioners, Medicins Sans Frontiers (Doctors Without Boarders), MTN Science Centers, Film Resource Unit, MSF HIV/AIDS treatment clinics, Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa, Open Society Foundation for South Africa, Church Development Service, Sida, Hivos, Canadian International Development Agency,
Conference Workshop Cultural Initiative Fund (CWCI), SABC Education
Back to South Africa
Note about materials: Some of the materials and resources listed on each page are available in their full form, others are represented by image or citation only. For more information and resources, go to www.jhuccp.org
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