IRIN HIV/AIDS Weekly - 291
Africa
7 July 2006


NEWS:

SIERRA LEONE: Diamonds not always a girl's best friend
RWANDA: Twelve years on, HIV-positive genocide survivors still
   suffering
UGANDA: New board game makes HIV education fun
SOMALIA: Youth-friendly magazine passing on HIV/AIDS message
MALAWI: Keep treatment programme simple, experts warn
SWAZILAND: Army takes the lead in HIV/AIDS campaign
TANZANIA: Policy indecision, staff shortages jeopardise PMTCT programmes


EVENTS/RESOURCES

1. UNICEF and OneWorld Radio are hosting a contest for HIV/AIDS radio 
features and public service announcements


VACANCIES

1. Project Evaluation Senior and Junior Consultants - Regional Office 
for Southern Africa of the International Organisation for Migration


NEWS:

SIERRA LEONE: Diamonds not always a girl's best friend

"It was after the war you see, when the rebels had killed my mother and 
my father, burnt down our house, leaving me and my younger siblings with 
nothing, nowhere to go and no one to look after us," said Rebecca Esano, 
25, a former sex worker in Koidu, a town in the diamond-rich east of 
Sierra Leone.

Dressed in a navy skirt and checked blue shirt, Esano looks identical to 
the other 300 young women at the training centre, where she showed off 
some of the tie-dyed garments she had made to sell and described what 
her life had been.

In 1999, after rebel forces ransacked the town at the height of the 
10-year civil war, Esano started working the streets and clubs to meet 
"rich men" - the estimated 200,000 miners, whose unceasing digging and 
panning has turned the impoverished Kono district into a lunar landscape 
of water-filled pits. At night they head to town to blow off steam, and 
a huge sex industry has developed to keep the miners entertained and 
spending.

More details:
http://www.plusnews.org/aidsreport.asp?reportid=6105


RWANDA: Twelve years on, HIV-positive genocide survivors still suffering

Rwanda marked its 12th Liberation Day since the 1994 genocide on Tuesday 
with calls of "never again", but thousands of women who were brutally 
raped in the 100 days of terror have an enduring reminder of their 
torment - the HI virus.

"Two years ago, after falling sick several times, I went for an HIV 
test, which turned out to be positive," said the widowed Marie-Therese 
Mutoni (not her real name), in the capital, Kigali. "This burden ... 
does not allow me to forget those days when the Interahamwe [militia 
from the majority Hutu ethnic group] were going around our village 
raping us and killing our families." Close to one million people were 
massacred.

Although the statistics vary, there is no doubt that rape was commonly 
and deliberately used to intimidate members of the minority Tutsi 
community and liberal Hutus. According to survivors, spreading HIV/AIDS 
was often deliberate, and not limited to women - men were sometimes 
forced to have sex with women known to be HIV-positive.

More details:
http://www.plusnews.org/aidsreport.asp?reportid=6116


UGANDA: New board game makes HIV education fun

Rather than preaching HIV/AIDS prevention messages to students, the 
government has unveiled a board game warning of the dangers of careless 
sexual behaviour.

Throw a '1' and you will be advised to "always wear a condom if you have 
to have sex" before moving forward two spaces.

"Mother-to-child HIV infection can be prevented if the disease is 
diagnosed early enough. If you think you might be pregnant, seek 
qualified medical advice". Wait a turn.

More details:
http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=6111


SOMALIA: Youth-friendly magazine passing on HIV/AIDS message

In the self-declared republic of Somaliland, where discussions about sex 
remain taboo, a group of young people have been passing the HIV/AIDS 
message on to their peers through a youth-friendly magazine, Koor.

The name is the Somali word for the wooden bell worn by herd camels to 
avoid them getting lost. Created in 2003, Koor provides basic 
information on HIV/AIDS to the youth, who in turn can use the knowledge 
to protect themselves from contracting the virus.

"We realised that the youth have very little basic knowledge of 
HIV/AIDS, they had few facts and a lot of fiction about the disease," 
said Koor's editor, 22-year-old Ilham Sheik Muse. "It made us realise 
that they needed a leader to pass vital and comprehensive information on 
the disease, we therefore established Koor to lead them."

More details:
http://www.plusnews.org/aidsreport.asp?reportid=6122


MALAWI: Keep treatment programme simple, experts warn

As the Malawian government takes stock of its anti-AIDS treatment 
programme, health officials have been faced with the question: how does 
a poor country with a serious epidemic and an overburdened health system 
provide indefinite care for up to 200,000 people living with HIV?

In a recent article in the medical journal The Lancet, three researchers 
involved in the country's treatment programme said the answer lies in 
sticking to a simple public health approach.

One of the authors, Dr Erik Schouten, who is also the health ministry's 
HIV/AIDS coordinator, told PlusNews that Malawi could not afford to 
follow wealthier countries like South Africa, that use advanced 
laboratory technology to monitor patients.

More details:
http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=6124


SWAZILAND: Army takes the lead in HIV/AIDS campaign

The Swazi army controversially bars recruits who are HIV positive, but 
it has become one of the most progressive employers in the country when 
it comes to promoting voluntary testing among its soldiers

More details:
http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=6134


TANZANIA: Policy indecision, staff shortages jeopardise PMTCT programmes

Indecision over the policy for prescribing and dispensing antiretroviral 
(ARV) drugs in Tanzania is restricting access by HIV-positive pregnant 
women, who bear the brunt of the pandemic, according to national 
statistics.

More details:
http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=6123


EVENTS/RESOURCES:

1. UNICEF and OneWorld Radio are hosting a contest for radio features 
and public service announcements to raise HIV/AIDS awareness and 
highlight young people's participation in the media.

This year the competition runs until 1 October 2006. The winners will be 
announced in December 2006 in conjunction with the International 
Children's Day of Broadcasting (ICDB). To be eligible for the 
UNICEF/OneWorld Radio Prize, the radio piece must have been produced by 
youth (persons under 21 years of age) and broadcast on the radio or 
internet.

Entries must be about HIV and AIDS - prevention, education, the scope of 
the epidemic, youth work around the epidemic, etc. Entries can be 
produced in any language, anywhere in the world, but must be radio 
broadcast quality. There will be two kinds of entries accepted: Feature 
Stories: no longer than 6 minutes in length; PSAs or Spots: up to 60 
seconds in length

The winners will be featured on both the OneWorld Radio and UNICEF 
sites, and will be podcast by UNICEF Radio. The top winners in each 
category will receive new radio production equipment in the amount of 
approximately US$500 from UNICEF Radio, and the winners will be 
celebrated in a ceremony in conjunction with the ICDB.

For more information, visit http://www.unicef.org/icdb or 
http://radioafrica.oneworld.net or contact: kcirillo@unicef.org


VACANCIES

1. Project Evaluation Senior and Junior Consultants - Regional Office 
for Southern Africa of the International Organisation for Migration 
(IOM)

Location: Pretoria, South Africa
Application deadline: 14 July 2006
Duration: August - September 2006

The Regional Office for Southern Africa of the International 
Organization for Migration (IOM), based in Pretoria, would like to 
invite interested individuals and organisations to conduct an 
end-of-project evaluation of its regional programme, the Partnership on 
HIV/AIDS and Mobile Populations in Southern Africa (PHAMSA). This 
three-year programme is nearing completion (December 2006) and needs to 
be evaluated in terms of its relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, 
impact and sustainability.

PHAMSA aims to reduce HIV vulnerability of migrant and mobile 
populations in Southern Africa by implementing policy development, HIV 
prevention and care, research, information dissemination and advocacy 
projects.

The evaluation requires a minimum of two consultants - a senior 
consultant responsible for overseeing the evaluation and a junior 
consultant to provide suitable support. The evaluation will take place 
in August/September 2006.

Interested consultants should contact Julia Hill-Mlati for the detailed 
Terms of Reference by telephone (+27 12 342 1120) or by email to: 
jhillmlati@iom.int


IRIN-SA
Tel: +27 11 895-1900
Fax: +27 11 784-6759
Email: IRIN-SA@irin.org.za


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