21 October 2008

Trumpeting a Sexual Health Message in Jericho, South Africa

Supported by funds from the United States, an organization sees progress

Tshepo Monyuku delivers a street lecture on fighting HIV/AIDS in South Africa.

By Phillip Kurata
Staff Writer

Jericho, South Africa — “Men, the ways of our grandfathers and fathers are past.  We have to change,” thundered HIV/AIDS activist Tshepo Monyuku to a group gathered at an outdoor festival. 

“If we men have multiple partners and our partners have multiple partners, then we will spread the disease and kill ourselves, our women and our children,” Monyuku continued.

He buttonholed people drawn by the music and commotion of an AIDS awareness event in the desolate, impoverished village of Letlhabile in Northwest province, where the former apartheid government had set up a black homeland and then neglected it.

The event had the trappings of a religious revival, with outdoor tents, singers, musicians and the speakers who thumped home the message that people had to change their ways or face extinction.  The AIDS workers carried clipboards and signed up people to get tested for the virus and to receive home visits to learn more about the disease that is devastating the area.

The Light House Foundation — based in Jericho, 20 kilometers up the road from the event — employs 28 people who work with missionary fervor and U.S. government funds to fight HIV/AIDS in 21 villages, where unemployment soars to around 80 percent and a person lies dying in every other house in some areas.

Education and behavioral change are the main tools that the Light House staffers use to thwart the spread of the disease, but it is a long, heartbreaking process to disentangle the strands of a cord, woven from sexual practices, poverty and lack of job skills, that is strangling the villages.

The Light House Foundation, founded and led by a young couple from Jericho, Tshepo and Nkele Ditsele, takes its work beyond the basic A-B-C message — Abstinence, Be faithful, Consistent use of Condoms — that is sounded by the media daily.  Light House staffers go to the clinics and educate women in the waiting rooms.  They knock on doors and visit the women and children within, gathering statistics and explaining how the virus spreads.

Light House Foundation director Tshepo Ditsele stands with an advertisement for his organization, which educates people about HIV/AIDS.

Men are rarely found in clinics or homes during daytime.  If they are not working at distant mines or cities, they likely can be found in a local shebeen (bar) or sitting with other men under a shade tree. To reach them, the Light House workers organize men’s forums, usually on weekends, where men talk among men, honestly and across generations. The oldest regular participant in these informal gatherings is 75, and the youngest is 21. 

“At the last meeting, the old man said that polygamy was the way of tribal marriage in the old days.  But things have changed.  It is no longer acceptable for a man to have many sex partners,” Monyuku said. 

“Mamogale, the chief of the Bakwenaba Mogopa tribe in Jericho, helped launch the men’s forums.  He sets a good example of a tribal leader being faithful to one woman,” said Light House Director Tshepo Ditsele. 

“Some men who come to the forums have been abused by their wives.  They are ashamed that anyone would know that.  When they are at the forum, they are encouraged to speak up,” said the Light House’s Victor Hlabane.

Poverty plays a big part in the spread of the disease.

“The ‘sugar daddy’ phenomenon poses a huge challenge.  Any man with a source of income — a taxi driver, a policeman, a shebeen owner — comes knocking with a sack of groceries and gets sex in return,” said Richard Delate of Johns Hopkins Health and Education in South Africa.  “What is the alternative when you are starving?”  Delate’s nonprofit works to improve health care around the world and is associated with Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

Another Light House worker related the case of a 14-year-old girl who took a sugar daddy to make money and go to school.

The Light House Foundation wants to teach lifelong skills, such as masonry, dress making, beadwork and carpentry, that would help young people in the villages to earn income, but the staffers concede that they lack the means to implement that idea at present.

But Light House plans to buy a dusty plot of land, drill a well and plant vegetables to help provide better nutrition for the community.   And the foundation recently received a 28-seat van, purchased with U.S. Agency for International Development money, which will enable it to transport sick people to clinics. 

With support from Johns Hopkins Health and Education South Africa and U.S. funding, Light House is eager to continue its work because it sees progress.  According to information gathered from its surveys, use of condoms among 15- to 24-year-olds has risen to 70 percent from 20 percent in 1998.