Investigating the impact and challenges of implementing the National Counselling and Testing Campaign in the Ga-Motupa Community in Limpopo

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The National Department of Health and The South African National AIDS Council (SANAC) jointly agreed to launch a massive campaign for HIV Counselling and Testing. The campaign was launched as an effort to step up and supplement and modify the programmes that are already running in the country, to fight HIV and AIDS. The campaign is known as the National HIV Counselling and Testing Campaign and it is based on the National HIV Counselling and Testing Campaign Strategy of SANAC (2010).The study aimed to investigate the impact of the campaign in terms of awareness levels of the benefiting groups as well as the challenges experienced by the relevant role players in implementing the campaign at the Ga-Motupa community in Limpopo. The investigation tools used in the research were interview schedules. Three focus groups were sampled from the target groups, namely care givers, learners and ABET educators. Individual participants were a health worker, a project leader and one educator from a primary and a secondary school. The research process entailed interviews and discussions with individuals and focus groups. Schedules were prepared beforehand to guide and direct the discussions and to guide the collection of data.The researcher planned to use the qualitative method of research because of the nature if the topic. The use of focus groups discussions and interviews were therefore relevant for this kind of study as the intention was to find out the experiences of the participants in the campaign, both the implementers and the beneficiaries. The respondents were chosen, based on their role in the HCT campaign.The main findings were that the HCT campaign was not yet fully understood by the beneficiaries. The main implementers of the campaign, mainly health workers and care givers, were the only ones with a high level of awareness of the activities and critical information of the campaign.Secondly, the beneficiaries such as the learners and educators had little or no information concerning the newly launched HCT campaign. The information received was general and was about the Voluntary Counselling and Testing launched back in 1996-2004.Thirdly, the campaign had left out some of the main role players such as the local traditional leaders, traditional healers and the religious community which are listed in the strategic document as key role players.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University