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  • Title: Community participation in AIDS activities in two pilot areas, Machinga district, Malawi.
    Author: Mwangalawa AS.
    Journal: NARESA Mongr; 1995 Sep; (17):2-4. PubMed ID: 12290850.
    Abstract:
    Students from the Department of Fine Art and Performing Arts of Chancellor College were subcontracted to spend one month in Nyambi and one month in Gawanani to facilitate participatory research and information gathering from the villages using focus group interviews. Nyambi is an Islamic-dominated area, while Gawanani is Christian-dominated. Music and drama were used to mobilize the communities. Performances were followed by discussion of how traditional practices potentially increasing the community risk of HIV infection could be altered. A drama presentation with proposed solutions was then presented to each community. Major risk factors identified were promiscuity and commercial sex, traditional male circumcision conducted with nonsterile equipment, female initiation requiring young women's participation in sexual intercourse, the sexual cleansing of young widows, tattooing by traditional healers, and misconceptions about how HIV is transmitted. Furthermore, extramarital relationships lead to marital breakdown and the subsequent involvement of unsupervised children in exploratory sexual activities. The district AIDS coordinator facilitated meetings with community leaders to mobilize them to form local AIDS committees. The committees then identified volunteers within their areas who were trained in AIDS education and group discussion skills. 58 volunteers were trained in January 1995. Further plans include the additional training of the volunteers in counseling and home-based care skills, transformation of the volunteers groups into self-administered local nongovernmental organizations, the provision of income-generating activities skills, condom promotion, and the application of the project method in other areas in the district. The success of this project attests to how people, when given the opportunity and guidance, can respond positively to problems and tackle them in their own context.
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