Who’s really to blame for awareness campaign failure?
Barely four months after the health minister’s proud declaration that 2006 would be the “year of accelerated HIV and AIDS prevention” the government is dismantling one of their biggest guns against HIV/AIDS and abandoning ship. Khomanani is no more.
In a speech at the Red Cross Symposium on Home-Based Care in April, Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said the government would intensify “communication and behaviour change messages and interventions targeting particularly those groups that still pose a challenge in terms of the risk of transmission and spread of HIV.” After five years of valiantly trying to educate people about HIV/AIDS, the health department’s flagship HIV-prevention campaign ground to an abrupt halt. The echoes of confusion created by that powerful engine dying are still resounding as questions are left unanswered. The department has very few answers to explain this catastrophic blow to the pandemic, Business Day reported:
“The health department yesterday insisted its flagship HIV prevention campaign, Khomanani, would continue, despite its failure to appoint new service providers before existing contracts expired two weeks ago. It was unable to explain exactly how it planned to do so in the months ahead while a new tender is drafted, candidates short-listed and new contracts awarded.”
Khomanani, which means “caring together”, has been momentarily suspended because the government felt it wasn’t getting value for its money. This means that the health department realised that the campaign was not having the desired impact in the fight against HIV/AIDS. The latest government statistics showed a growth in new infections meaning that the campaign has failed to deliver the message with any great effect. People are not listening.
It is rather ironic that the government, which ought to hold up the candle so to speak, should be the very people who give up. That people are not really paying enough attention to HIV-awareness campaigns is nothing new. If people had been listening, HIV/AIDS would not have our society so much in its grip. The purpose of an HIV/AIDS awareness campaign is not only to prevent people from getting infected. HIV/AIDS awareness incorporates providing information for people already infected, people affected and basic educational information on the pandemic. Khomanani was not only an HIV/AIDS campaign; it included tuberculosis and sexually-transmitted illnesses awareness.
It is fortunate that there are so many non-governmental organisations and other HIV awareness campaigns such as LoveLife that haven’t given up. However, Khomanani was a joint effort between the government and the media and perhaps we need to ask who is more responsible for making this campaign look like it was a failure. Did the media partners of Khomanani do their very best to make the campaign a success or were they just milking another HIV/AIDS cash cow? The media’s role in the fight against HIV/AIDS should be redefined and we should know whether they are active participants or merely tools to be used by the fighters. – Akhona Cira