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Siyayinqoba Beat It! 2006 Episode 12 -

Tertiary Institutions

In South Africa, many of us finish grades 12 between the ages of 18 and 20, then we go on to study at a technikon or university, and many of us stay in hostels there. The number of people infected by HIV also increases in the 16 to 20 year age group. In this episode of Siyayinqoba the support group spoke about tertiary institutions and HIV. They were joined by Azola Goqwana who is a peer educator at the Cape Peninsula University to discuss this topic.

Shalom Ncala: {Sesotho} [Hello and welcome to the Siyayinqoba Beat It! Support Group. My name is Shalom Ncala. Each week, we get together in the Siyayinqoba Support Group, to discuss issues that affect our lives with HIV, from getting life insurance, to waiting lists for ARV treatment. Before we watch our first insert, I’d like to welcome Azola Goqwana, a peer educator from the Cape Peninsula University of Technology. Siyayinqoba is your guide to better living with HIV. If you’re living with HIV, or you have a partner, a family member or a friend who is HIV positive, Siyayinqoba is for you. When young people finish school and leave home to study further, they are suddenly more free than they’ve ever been, no more limits. No more parents or neighbours watching their every move. It’s time in life when it’s natural for young people to want to experiment, so they are especially vulnerable. In South Africa, many of us finish grades 12 between the ages of 18 and 20, then we go on to study at a technikon or university, and many of us stay in hostels there. The number of people infected by HIV also increases in the 16 to 20 year age group. This group has the highest HIV prevalence. Today we look at the behaviour of young people in tertiary institutions and the HIV prevention programmes that are in place. First we went to the University of KwaZulu Natal in Pietermaritzburg, where we met peer educator, Dolly Mvubu and the head of the VCT programme, Chris Mokolatsie.

Pietermaritzburg, KZN – What is your institution doing in the fight against HIV/AIDS?

Student 1: People come from high school where sex is not this big topic but when you’re in varsity, everybody is talking about it, it’s not a sin, and everybody is doing it. It’s the in thing.

Student 2: People do have sex, I mean if you went to a high school scenario, you’d probably find people who are having sex there as well.

Chris Mokolatsie (UKZN AIDS Programme): {Sesotho} [The University of KwaZulu Natal is one of the leading institutions that help students and staff make sure that the danger and magnitude of this pandemic, HIV/AIDS, is reduced. We do this by providing treatment and VCT free of charge and wellness management programmes for students who are infected with HIV but not yet at a stage where they need ARV treatment, that’s free of charge on campus. We run another programme called Peer Education where students discuss HIV/AIDS and issues they face regarding the disease. Issues like stigmatisation, discrimination and safe sex.

Dudu Mvubu (Peer Educator, UKZN): Into engizocela siyenze namhlanje ukuthi sijonge ama-peer education programmes. La bantu bangama-peer educators basho yini indaba bajoina le-programme. {IsiZulu} [Today we are looking at peer education programmes. To start, the educators will tell us why they’ve joined this programme.]

Educator 1: Ngibonile nam nges’khathi ngifika la e-varsity ukuthi umuntu ma efika, ufika ashintshe indlela ekade ephila ngayo esahlal’ekhaya. So lawo ma-changes lawo umuntu afike awathole e-varsity, they change the person and ama-activities umuntu akade ewenza esahlala ekhaya. Masebakhona into eyiningi umuntu a-engage kuzo manje. So bayaludinga usizo at the end of the day ukuthi bathole i-awareness that there’s something ebizwa ngokuthi yingculaza. {IsiZulu} [I realised when I got to varsity that people change the way they live. These experiences at varsity change a person and the activities they used to do at home. They start doing things that they never used to do before. So they need help to be aware that there is a thing called AIDS and they have to be aware of that.]

Chris Mokolatsie: {Sesotho} [Students are not different from other groups who are away from home. Mobile populations, who fall under migrant populations, like mine workers and truck drivers who spend long periods of time away from their families. So it’s important for us that as soon as students arrive here, they have programmes that give them support not only when they get here at first year level] but also through their entire academic carreer and training [so that they have somewhere they feel free and supported.]

Support group

Shalom Ncala: I just wonder, if I can ask you Fanie or Azola, what kind of problems do you come across in your institutions?

Fanie de Villiers (University of Stellenbosch): I think in school these kids are getting bombarded with information and if I then look at when they come to their first year in university, and you’re standing there with your orientation week, they are just basically: “HIV? I have heard enough about it. I heard about it in school, I don’t need to listen to this anymore.”

Azola Goqwana (Peer Educator, Cape Peninsula University): At tertiary there’s all sorts of challenges. People want to be in a certain group, like the one in the insert, the girl said that you want to be in the in crowd, you want to be part of a group. Therefore that goes with a lot of things like what clothes you wear. That counts, one way or another. First of all, it’s not one of those things students discuss that: “I’ve tested positive or negative.” It doesn’t want to be discussed. I know that they are very interested in doing awareness stuff, they like distributing condoms, they like joining HIV programmes that are there. When it comes to VCT, then it becomes another story altogether.

Vuyani Jacobs: But how do you work around it? Do you create peer groups? Tell us about that, probably then we can have an idea of it.

Azola Goqwana: For instance, I concentrate on awareness and prevention which is where you get the peer educators involved. You have people that are doing research, the education part. Then you have people that are concerned with community outreach, which is on campus and outside of campus. What I’m trying to say is that the policy is there, those things do exist and are going on this present moment. But now, the question is how many people access it? And what you would have to look at, as far as accessing is concerned, is why aren’t people coming to access the treatment programmes that are there? Why would we have students getting sick at res? And it’s happened on my campus that we’ve had two students that were sick and just didn’t want to access the treatment programme, even though it’s there. For instance, for a treatment programme, we’ve got the referra, hospitals that are there. So a person would test on campus and then they would get counselling. So now what you need to do is to go and get your treatment. That person needs to tell me that I need to go to Tygerberg, can you come with me? And I’ll say its fine, I can go with you. And that is one of the heaviest duties of the health promoter.

Nokhwezi Hoboyi: What you’re saying ukuthi you don’t have indawo lie ikliniki esikhupha i-treatment? {IsiXhosa} [Why do you say that you don’t have clinics that give out treatment but you do referrals?]

Azola Goqwana: Yes, because on the insert, that institution is registered as an ARV site but most institutions are not registered as such. Most of them don’t have the capacity to carry out such a service.

Shalom Ncala: {Sesotho} [We talk about tertiary institutions and HIV after the break, don’t go away.]

Shalom Ncala: {Sesotho} [Welcome back to the Siyayinqoba Beat It! Support Group – the programme for everyone infected and affected by HIV. The Siyayinqoba team visited the University of the Western Cape where we met with Joachim Jacobs and some of his colleagues from the peer education programme there. Let’s take a look.]

Cape Town, Western Cape – “The VCT campaign at our institution has been a success”

Joachim Jacobs (HIV/AIDS Programme Manager, UWC): Today we’re doing a VCT campaign. The university has a VCT service, offered free of charge. Over the two days, Wednesday and Thursday, the university is offering a free services running from nine o’clock till four. For the past four hours, we’ve done about 115 students.

Student 1: Into ebangela nditeste namhlanje yinto yoba ndifilishe uba umntu ku-right uba asazi i-status sakhe kwenzele ayazi uba uzosebenzia i-protection nanini na. yhiyo lento ndilapha namhlanje, ndifun’ukwazi i-status sam kwenzele ii-decisions endizenzayo ndikwazi uzenza kakuhle. {IsiZulu} [I’m testing today because I feel it is good for a person to know their status. So that if they’re sexually active they should know how to protect themselves. That is why I am here today. I want to know my status so that I can make informed decisions.]

Tania Vergnani (HIV/AIDS Programme Director, UWC): This is a huge encouraging response. Up to now, often these kinds of programmes people are not testing. It’s almost as if I feel there’s a change in the vibe, there’s a change in the willingness to come and test and that’s fantastic.

Student 2: Well. It’s hitting me now that this is actually real because when we’re sitting over there, going to counselling, we’re talking that we’re going to tell them: “No, we going to handle it”, but when I’m sitting here, I’m thinking: “This is serious, it might actually be positive.”

Student 3: I think it’s because of my past sexual experiences; I just want to be certain.

Student 4: I’m one of those people who never believed in HIV and AIDS. I guess at the last minute, I probably changed my mind. I’m a bit sceptical about this whole thing. If she tells me I’m HIV positive, I might still not believe her.

Student 1: Kubantu abasoyikayo, ngase ndithi kubo xa ungekayotesta uyohlala usoyika ubomi bakho bonke. And kumnandi uba ukhe wayotesta uzophila impilo ebhetele ngohlobo loba indlela ocinga ngayo, uyakwazi ukuzi-protect kuyo yonke into oyenzayo. {IsiXhosa} [To those who are afraid to get tested, I say, if you haven’t been tested, you will live in fear your whole life. And the good thing is that once you have tested, you’ll conquer that fear and live a better life thereafter. Better in the sense of your decision making and thought processing, and you can protect yourself in everything you do.]

Mzwandile Mawela (SRC President, UWC): As leaders we need to be at the forefront of the campaigns against HIV and AIDS. On our campuses we have support systems and respective communities. Abantu bethu abayi kwezindawo, bazisebenzise zenzelwe lento because abasazi i-status sabo. {IsiXhosa} [The problem with our people is that they don’t use these facilities because they don’t know their status.]

Prof. Brian O’Connell (UWC Rector and Vice-Chancellor): In my noble address, I spoke for the need for a social revolution in South Africa where as a country, together we think about how we might mobilise all of our forces to defeat the HIV and AIDS pandemic. When major social changes are called for, leadership is absolutely crucial.

Support group

Shalom Ncala: Into engiye ngithande ukuyi-explainele ama-students everytime si-run ama-VCT campaigns ethu is that any detection of any disease makes it easier for doctors treat it on time. Kungekamshayi izinto ezininzi, umuntu engekafiki kwi-AIDS stage whereby kwenzeka yonke into ebekungadingekanga ukuthi yenzeke. And futhi it saves time ngokuthi umuntu wakhona akwazi a-manage isifo lesisimphethe nges’khathi esi-right. So yinto engihlale ngiyigcizelela njalo when we have our VCT campaigns. {IsiZulu} [One thing I explain to students at our VCT campaigns is that any detection of any disease makes it easier for doctors to treat it on time. Before the damage is done, before you reach the AIDS stage, when you become too ill to look after yourself. And it saves time for one to manage the disease. So that’s what I always emphasise at VCT campaigns.]

Lihle Dlamini: As much as nikhona abantu abaphethe i-institutions like ama-dean, ama-lecturers ‘how much do they get involved’ bona ekutheni badlulise i-information, badlulise ama-pamphlets bame phambi kwama-students ba-encourage ukuthi ‘they should go for VCT despite the fact’ ukuthi ikhona i-site ye-VCT and counselling. {IsiZulu} [As much as you are there as peer educators at institutions, there is VCT, counselling and ongoing counselling as well, but people who govern the institutions, how much do they get involved in passing on information, distributing pamphlets, standing in front of students encouraging them to go for VCT, despite the fact that there are VCT and counselling sites available?]

Azola Goqwana: Most universities have unique situations, for instance in some universities, you will have the Vice-Chancellor going out and doing public testing and that kind of thing. But at the same time, within the country we haven’t seen much of that. we need to see more Vice-Chancellors going out and doing those kinds of public awarenesses. But I said, they will say that it’s not their core business. Health services are there but the institution will tell you that no dean will go out there and say this about HIV unless they’ve been asked to. So for them, they will tell you that it’s not their primary business, which is a problem. This goes back to the whole thing of having a policy but what do you do with a policy that you have? How much do you apply it?

Thami Mthembu: If you bring the message to people, keep pushing the messages, then it becomes normal, it becomes something they want to do, it becomes something everybody else is doing. And we all know that people in universities have this syndrome, just like in high school, of the Jones’ theory: “I need to do as somebody else, just to fit in” and I think that if we come up with creative enough way; SMS drives and that sort of thing. I remember Fanie speaking of a campaign they have at Stellenbosch with the SABC, and I’d like you to talk about it. I think its creative messages like that, that are constant, that are there all the time that will help to bring students to the forefront.

Fanie de Villiers: Ja, I think you’re now exactly giving me the opportunity to come in on that because as you mention it, I just realise that just about three weeks ago, a student came to us asking: “Are you going to run that same campaign again next year?” So it’s having an impact. Maybe sometimes you have the same campaign but just going bigger. That’s your motto every year go bigger but the same campaign. They took the ABC and put it in baby blocks and they came up with the slogan: “Grow up, get tested”. But they decided: “What is the A going to stand for?” They said: “Ok, taking that first step, getting that information”, so we decided on these bangles on my arm. If they gather information, they get an A bracelet, then if they go for a booking to get tested, they get the B. And then if they’ve gone through counselling and got tested, they receive their C bracelet. And then we decided, what about involvement, you must encourage people to get involved. So we added the D for doing something.

Vuyani Jacobs: Tell me something, now that you’ve spoken about your programme, I wondering about the response of the students, especially in Stellenbosch, did anyone test or you were the only one testing yourself?

Fanie de Villiers: You know Vuyani, I think you know a lot about Stellenbosch University, it’s not an easy place to work in, especially in the HIV field. Ja, I think the response is getting bigger and bigger from our students, really. If we’re looking at three years back where we also had our campaigns but we didn’t have our peer educators involved, not a lot of people tested. We more than doubled our figures that following year and this year when we ran it, we even got more students and staff tested. So it’s growing gradually.

Shalom Ncala: {Sesotho} [We talk more about tertiary students and HIV after the break, don’t go away.]

Shalom Ncala: {Sesotho} [Welcome back to Siyayinqoba Beat It! support group, the programme for everyone infected and affected by HIV.

Nokubonga Yawa: Ingas’ke nindiphe umfanekiso ngqondweni uba zi-campaign ezinjani ezi nizenzayo because ekuhlaleni thina elokishini ii-campaign esizenzayo umzekelo ii-condom bash. Ngokokucinga kwam ingathi bekufanele uba zii-bash ezinokwenziwa pha e-tertiary because abantu bafika batshintshe u-life wabo, batha ii-bash ngezinto ezinjalo. Ingas’ke thina siyi-youth sisonke, kungathiwa hayi e-tertiary batshintsha i-life. Siyi-youth sisonke singadibana senze into enye. Umzekelo if singalwela into yokubana ii-company ezenza i-alcohol zithi xa zi-advertise utywala babo buhambe ne-condom phakathi, ungayisela yona but yiba-safe after uyisele. I know akukho easy ukuthi xa usele usebenzise i-condom ne, masizameni kangangoko sinakho. {IsiXhosa} [What type of campaigns do you run? Because in the townships we have campaigns like condom bashes. In my view, I think these kinds of campaigns should be run at tertiary institutions because when people reach tertiary level, their lifestyles change and they like bashes and so on. I wish that the youth as a whole could stand together and not exclude those at tertiary institutions. The youth should stand together for one cause, for example, we can fight these companies that promote alcohol. When they advertise their alcohol, there should be a condom in the advert emphasizing that you can drink but be safe. We know that it’s not easy to use a condom when you are drunk, but let’s try as hard as we can.

Fanie de Villiers: Like Azola said earlier on, each institution is unique and it’s got it’s own characteristics and it’s own vibes and everything and that makes it difficult, and you’ve got to investigate what yours’ are before you can do anything about it. Like for instance in Stellenbosch, predominantly white university, very difficult community to work in and especially Afrikaans. But we were speaking about the “Your Moves” game, I mean I’ve also got the “Your Moves” game, that we can use, but will it work in Stellenbosch? The Tsha Tsha series, will that work in Stellenbosch? No it will not, because the faces are black. And the immediate turn-around from the students is: “Ag now you see it’s a black disease man; it doesn’t affect us.” And if you now really look at what the media portrays out there, I don’t think that there’s enough white faces out there being put within the public sector, within TV, advertisements et cetera et cetera. Its just black faces you see and that’s what is making it so difficult to work within the white communities because they think: “Ok what I see on TV, what I see in the news is black, it’s not our problem, go and talk to them, don’t come and talk to us.”

Azola Goqwana: For instance, I think all universities have lovely policies, we’re creating an environment that is safe enough not to stigmatise or discriminate but when it comes to practise, universities are not promoting that in any way, it’s just words at the end of the day. If you’re not going to have one person standing up and saying: “I’m HIV positive”, and the whole campus is silent, how are we creating an environment that is safe enough not to stigmatise, not to discriminate, it’s just words.

Fanie de Villiers: We’ve got our policies, we create awarenesses best as we can. And we’re looking at a total of about +/- 24 000 students and not one is living openly with HIV.

Azola Goqwana: For me, one of the problems students have is: “What do I say at home?”, because I’ve been sent to this tertiary institution with a lot of money, what are my parents going to say? For me, I’d like to appeal to the parents at home, support your children even though they are still in tertiary. Because now the tendency becomes that people will say that: “No, I’ll only do it once I’m finished studying”, that time might be too late. “What will I say at home?”, that pushes back disclosure. So there are all those factors that affect them. I was lucky because my mother was supportive and she said: “No, go on, continue studying. We’re going to here for you as a family.”

Vuyani Jacobs: I remember there was a letter coming to Siyayinqoba from a student at Pentech and the student was saying that: “Thank you Siyayinqoba, at some stage I really thought I had HIV and I ended up with the courage to test and I tested negative, I’m going to stay negative”, which is what we’re trying to do as Siyayinqoba; to say that people living with HIV, who test positive, must go to the doctor early and make sure that they live longer and those who test negative must keep on being negative, use a condom and keep on being negative.

Shalom Ncala: {Sesotho} [Today we learnt that tertiary institutions are places where a lot of experimentation takes place, from risky sexual encounters to excessive use of drugs and alcohol. But programmes educating students about HIV/AIDS and safe sexual practices are in place and can make a big difference. If you are in a tertiary institution and think you are at risk, talk to a counsellor, get tested for HIV, it’s better to know than not to know, and deal with your emotions. We all found out our status and changed our lives to live positively. Each week, we receive many letters from you, our viewers and we love to hear from you. So contact us on the numbers on your screen now. We hope that you enjoyed the show and are feeling the Siyayinqoba spirit – together we can beat it. Join us again next week in the Siyayinqoba Beat It! Support Group. Until then stay healthy, stay positive.]

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