VOA RADIO SEGMENT ON SIYAYINQOBA BEAT IT!

On October, 3, 2008 Voice of America, one of the world's most respected broadcasters, aired a radio segment about Siyayinqoba Beat It! that included interviews with CHMT director, Jack Lewis, and the series' producer, Yvette Kruger. The radio segment looked at the history of the broadcast series, the current format, the inclusion of the HIV postive support group, the community journalists and all the various issues covered by the show that educate and inform those infected by HIV - their families, partners, friends, colleagues and healthcare workers.

Download the VOA radio segment here | ZIP 2,470 KB

The Siyayinqoba Beat It! segment transcript:

Unathi Kondile (VOA Africa): The idea for the TV series started with the non-profit Community Health media Trust nearly 10 years ago. Activists decided that putting HIV positive people on television would help break down stigma and encourage people to talk about the disease more openly. The show also incorporates a number of Community Journalists as well as young volunteers who visit communities and conduct outreach treatment literacy programmes on HIV and TB. The show is called Siyayinqoba or Beat It! in English; it is aired once a week and is co-produced by the Trust and the South African Broadcasting Corporation. It is part documentary and part talk show. Every episode explores issues affecting people living with HIV such as disclosure, TB and more. It provides information on HIV and on how to live positively with the virus. The programme covers many subjects that touch on HIV and AIDS including gender violence.

Unathi Kondile: Jack Lewis is the director of Community Health Media Trust.

Jack Lewis (CHMT director): When people were dying we wanted to find a name that was inspirational and that told people really shortly that they could beat it that they could beat HIV and AIDS and that is still our message. No one in South Africa or the world should even be experiencing one day's illness of HIV. It's a chronic, manageable condition; if you test in time, become well adjusted to your status, make the necessary behavioural modifications, go on to treatment. Never mind not dying you shouldn't even be sick for one day - it should just be a non-event and yet at the same time we have half a million people in South Africa who are dying, never mind not having a day's illness they are having years of illness and then death. And that is wrong and our message is we can Beat It!

Unathi Kondile: Siyayinqoba Beat It! reaches up to a million viewers each week in South Africa - an unprecedented number for any daytime educational show. It competes with sports, soap operas and other series.

Unathi Kondile: Yvette Kruger is the show's producer.

Yvette Kruger (Siyayinqoba Beat It! Producer): We've managed to find a formula that is exciting and hip and fun and very, very open and frank. We talk about sex, we talk about condoms, femidoms because they want to be spoken openly too about sex and HIV and the reality.

Unathi Kondile: The show gets hundreds of letters every week begging them to be on air longer and to do road shows as well. They've recently launched 6 public service announcements about various factors that contribute to the rise of HIV in South Africa. The announcements are being broadcast in English, Xhosa and Zulu. But funding for such productions and community outreach awareness campaigns continues to be one of their biggest challenges.

Yvette Kruger: We are currently funded by the Department for International Development of the UK and the Cultural Conference and Workshop Initiative, which is an EU funded organisation, the Open Society Foundation and the Global Fund to Fight TB, HIV and Malaria. Funding is a lot of hard work. Unfortunately non-of our funding comes from within South Africa; it all comes from international donors.

Unathi Kondile: The ratings for Siyayinqoba Beat It! continue to grow. They have also recently launched their website www.beatit.co.za. It features over 200 video clips of past shows and campaigns by the Community Health Media Trust undertaken in South Africa over the last decade. For VOA Africa I'm Unathi Kondile in Cape Town South Africa.