| Publication Year | 2014 |
| Volume Number | Vol 16 |
| Issue Number | Issue 1 |
| Pages | 116-129 |
| Journal Title | Africa Journal of Nursing and Midwifery |
| Author(s) | |
| Author Affiliation(s) |
|
| Affiliation(s) | University of Cape Town |
| Subject(s) | |
| ISSN | 16825055 |
| Indexed By | Sabinet Online |
| Language | English |
| Accreditation(s) | DOE |
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
New Article Published:
Wednesday, July 9, 2014
Monday paper
Volume 32.02
25 February 2013 |
HAICU wall supports march
HAICU and ACES launched an online campaign partnering with the UCT We Say: "Enough!" protest march. The campaign encourages UCT students and staff to talk about the reasons for marching. Students and staff posed for photographs with their personal messages calling for action. In picture are (from left, back) Zine Jobela, Cal Volks, and Sianne Abrahams. (Front) Stella Kyobula Mukoza and Lucina Reddy.
A collage of these pictures can be viewed online at HAICU Facebook page.
Addressing HIV Stigma- Not just prevention- through Art
| Monday paper Volume 31.08 18 May 2012 |
Stigma was tackled in word and art at UCT's Candlelight Memorial – themed Shine Light. Stop Stigma – on 10 May.
 |  |
 |  |
On request from the HIV/AIDS Institutional Co-ordination Unit (HAICU), 62 fine-arts students on the foundation course at the Michaelis School of Fine art had set up a series of exhibitions in which they investigated the theme. One challenge set for the students by lecturer Fabian Saptouw was to make the pieces "interactive", and to get a dialogue of sorts going with viewers. "Because it needs to be a conversation that we're all able to have with each other," said student Helen Aadnesgaard. In pictures (clockwise from top): Saptouw and students Michelle Aucamp and Aadnesgaard; Tamsyn Dodds, Laura Chittenden, Jolandi Coetzee, Cleo du Plessis, Elize de Beer, Kasey Davies and Kate Eriksen with their condom vending machine; Pam Bentley and Jane Matthews show off some of their creations; and passer-by Ndlela Sithembile gets up close to another of the pieces
Seminar Presentation at Freie University Berlin as Part of Erasmus Mundus Scholarship
R
Trip to Germany June 2014
an In
Art explores HIV prevention and Sexual Concurrency
30 August 2012
Passers-by on UCT's upper campus turned into spectators when, last week, a group of UCT students translated sexual concurrency into art.
 |  |
| Bread and bed: Student Bronwyn Katz at the HAICU exhibition. | Caught up: A web of yarn represents the links created by sexual concurrency. |
In collaboration with HAICU and under the guidance of art lecturer Fabian Saptouw, the first-year art students constructed a number of artworks that explored the third-term theme of UCT's HIV/AIDS Institutional Co-Ordination Unit (HAICU), Sexual Concurrency and HIV Prevention.
A mazy web of yarn that viewers struggle to negotiate, representing the smothering nature of the concurrency web, to a mattress overflowing with human-shaped cut-outs of bread that harked back to Tracy Emin's 1998 artwork My Bed and was said to represent the potential population that are susceptible to contracting the virus as a result of sexual concurrency.
Saptouw said because the exhibition was student-driven, it gave the message a different - and welcome - legitimacy among students than the more frequent "top-down" and passive delivery of the anti-HIV message.
"My main interest is getting students to think in a different way about art and social responsibility," he said. "It's about students at [students'] level engaging with you about the disease in a way that's a little bit different to the way the message is normally carried out, that I think that's the most effective thing about the project."
Pictured below. Presenting on this topic at The HEAIDS 2012 Conference;
AIDS Awareness Event 2012
UCT Festival of Desire 2012
My organisation HAICU addressing Masculinities through Art
| Monday paper Volume 33.05 17 June 2014 |
The UCT first rugby team donned lace and felt practice jerseys for Liesl Brenzel's project which challenged perceptions of masculinity. Her work was part of a third-year elective for new media students - a result of a partnership between the Michaelis School of Fine Art and HAICU.
- By placing rainbow cushions against more impervious structures in and around the campus and city, third-year Michaelis student Julia Kabat invites passers-by to consider the vulnerability and fragility of those who experience prejudice.
- Made from hollow-cast wax, Julian Gasson and Raees Saaiet's third-year installation One Hundred Hollow Men refers to both the literal hollowness of the figures, and rigid masculine qualities sometimes favoured in society rather than inner strength.
- HIV stigma was the focus of this first-year Michaelis student's installation in the Molly Blackburn Hall. With the aim of making people confront their own prejudices around HIV/AIDS-related issues, students lounge against pillows made from condoms, taking the 'private' - in this case a bedroom - into a public space.
A group of third-year Michaelis School of Fine Art students have been experimenting with everyday objects, using them in public art interventions to open up spaces for what can sometimes be difficult conversations: around gender, sexual identity, and the choices we make.
When sculpture student Liesl Brenzel dressed the UCT first rugby team in practice jerseys made of lace and felt, she was making a statement about perceptions of masculinity. After the practice session, the team signed a jersey and Brenzel had it box framed, to replicate the traditional aesthetic of rugby memorabilia.
This 'public intervention', titled Die Manne, was for a third-year new media elective, 'Public Practice and Socially Responsive Art: Exploring masculinities and HIV/AIDS.' According to the elective outline, there's a dearth of knowledge focused on the relationship between HIV, retroviral treatment and masculinity. Through this work, Brenzel wanted to investigate how these men would be perceived if there was any change to the status quo.
To try to address this knowledge gap and encourage critical discussion and reflection, Michaelis School of Fine Art elective lecturer Fabian Saptouw and his students have been working in partnership with UCT's HIV/AIDS, Inclusivity and Change Unit (HAICU) since 2012, exploring the connection between contemporary constructions of masculinity and HIV through art production and intervention.
"Art is being used in public spaces in an informal and interactive way, making it widely accessible, to engage people about HIV/AIDS," says Saptouw. "Our students are not standing back from tackling social issues and messages. And this is where art and education intersect."
Many of the artworks use everyday objects to convey their messages and create space for discussion.
"In that process of doing, and in discussion, is where the shift happens in the students' understanding of these social issues and the artwork," says Saptouw.
Thinking and process are vital to the ways we look at the world; and as much as the art is about meaning, it's also about the process of making, acting and creating art, he explains.
"The process gets the students thinking critically about how we understand the role of art. On a small scale these projects are shifting people's relationship to art as well. Creating an artwork in response to these social issues gives students agency, and they become active participants in the discussion instead of passively absorbing information. They feel they are doing something."
As the students' public artworks open up issues around HIV/AIDS, students begin to talk to other students. "And in speaking to their peers, the students become HAICU ambassadors," notes Saptouw.
Story by Helen Swingler. Photos courtesy of Fabian Saptouw.
20 years of HIV and Inclusivity Education at UCT
| UCT Monday paper Volume 33.04 19 May 2014 |
Keenan Hendrickse, SRC secretary-general, and Carey McIntosh, SRC health coordinator, added their voice to support for those living with HIV/AIDS and members of the LGBQTI community at UCT's annual candlelight memorial.Another anniversary - commemorating 20 years of UCT running an HIV/AIDS programme and the ACE's student peer education programme - was celebrated at the annual candlelight memorial on 8 May.
Acting Vice-Chancellor Professor Thandabantu Nhlapo said the event serves to raise awareness about HIV and AIDS. "With 33 million people living with HIV today, the International AIDS Candlelight Memorial is an important intervention for global solidarity and in breaking down the barriers of stigma and discrimination," he commented.
Cal Volks, director of the HIV, AIDS Inclusivity and Change Unit (HAICU), explained that the memorial is about "remembering those we have lost to AIDS and renewing all of our commitment to addressing HIV prevention, treatment and stigma".
"On this day, at this gathering, we also speak out as members of the university community about the rights of people who identify themselves as lesbians, gays, bisexuals, questioning, transsexual, intersex, (LGBQTI) and men who have sex with men - in Africa and the world. We support your human rights," she added.
Another speaker at the event, Professor Pierre de Vos from the law faculty, observed that "one of the big problems with prejudice and stigma is that it is usually internalised by those at the receiving end of it".
Past peer educators attended the events, which formed part of the university's Africa Month celebrations. A UCT alumnus who was a peer educator in 1994, Dr Marc Hendricks, performed musical items together with Amanda Tiffin, a lecturer at the South African College of Music.
The memorial was used to inform UCT students and staff of a new initiative, with the name Out Zone/Zone In. Volks pointed out that wherever the Out Zone/Zone In sign is seen on an office door, it designates a safe space, where members of the LGBQTI community can discuss issues related to being gay, lesbian, bisexual, questioning, transsexual and intersex, without being judged or stigmatised. The initiative is run jointly by HAICU, RainbowUCT and the Student Representative Council (SRC).
Students who spoke at the event included RainbowUCT's Asheen Bhagwandin, together with Keenan Hendrickse and Carey McIntosh, both from the SRC.
Below with Pierre De Vos and Thandabantu Nhlapo and Event poster
Born free? The burden of apartheid down the generations
| UCT Monday Volume 33.02 17 March 2014 |
The burden of apartheid-era trauma is carried down the generations, and can still affect university-level students today, explained HIV/AIDS, Inclusivity and Change Unit (HAICU) director Cal Volks (pictured above) at the recent UCT colloquium on intergenerational trauma in post-conflict societies, and the role of higher education institutions in addressing it.
Following on the launch of her book, Are They Really 'Born Free'? Volks discussed her research with UCT students living with HIV, interviewed in 2006 and early 2012, exploring the multi-layered burden of experiencing HIV stigma coupled in some with intergenerational trauma and some experiences of discrimination around race, class, gender, language and sexual orientation.
According to Volks, students interviewed in 2012 exhibit some of the traits Polish-American writer and academic Eva Hoffman speaks of in second and third post-Holocaust generations for example, the need to achieve and overachieve against all odds to make up for losses their parents experienced, as well as rampant perfectionism combined with intense guilt.
One of the students interviewed spoke of his parents' expectations and his struggle to integrate being HIV+ with his sense of self: "I do feel guilty sometimes … because of what was expected ... I'm not sure they understand it's not easy to deliver [on] some of their expectations … I can't tell my mom [about the HIV] ... They expected only good things."
This palpable pressure, ongoing HIV stigma and the legacy of apartheid-era trauma may even affect something like antiretroviral (ARV) uptake - which is why, according to Volks, ARV roll-out should include more social support.
Volks urged higher education institutes to "strive to understand the multiple levels of trauma that some of their students face, and to create spaces to deal with the intersectionality, both in support services and discipline-relevant classroom discussions, in preparing graduates to enter the world with an understanding of how to address these issues".
Story by Abigail Calata. Picture by Michael Hammond.
Pictured below with part of my family and Dr. Juliet Rodgers
| Volume 33.02 17 March 2014 |
Always remembered: The cracked glass of this memorial to Curt and Regina Schönwald, erected in 2008, symbolises Kristallnacht when Nazi party members smashed the windows of Jewish-owned businesses in Germany including the Schönwald's textile shops in Grossröhrsdorf. In the inscription the citizens of Grossröhrsdorf expressed their regret at not acting to save the Schönwalds, but added that they owe it to themselves, their children and the Schönwald family to preserve the memory of their life and suffering.During World War II, bystanders in the community of Grossröhrsdorf, a small East German village near Dresden, witnessed a Jewish family being taken away by the Nazis.
The parents, Curt and Regina Schönwald, became victims of the gas chambers that killed millions of Jews. But before being sent to Buchenwald, Curt, a decorated World War I soldier, was released to sell his business, a textile shop the family had owned since 1928. During that brief reprieve, the couple managed to send their children, Heinz and Suze, to safety in America and what was then Rhodesia.
But the community of Grossröhrsdorf never forgot the family, and for decades lived with the shame of not acting as their friends and neighbours were taken away to certain death.
Captured by the story, German theologian Pastor Norbert Littig spent 25 years researching what happened to the family – a complicated endeavour, given that the German Democratic Republic (GDR) did not allow this type of research – and began a reconciliatory process, piecing together memories from the bystanders.
This work inspired a book, and the community later issued a formal apology, the Grossröhrsdorf Apology, acknowledging their failure to protect the Schönwalds.
In November 2008 a memorial to Curt and Regina Schönwald was erected in the town during a week of "dignified remembrance". It reflected similar post-WWII reparation efforts, particularly by German Christians who'd also "stood by and watched", as a confession of their guilt. Organisations were formed to care for Jewish cemeteries and the aged, many of whom had survived the Holocaust.
Littig is now active in school exchanges that promote peace between Germany, Israel and Palestine. During his recent visit to South Africa in February, he addressed participants at UCT's 'Reconciliation, Intergenerational Trauma and Higher Education' colloquium.
Acknowledging blame: German theologian Pastor Norbert Littig, with a translator Dr Tania Katzschner, recounting his research on a World War II Jewish family taken by the Nazis as their fellow villagers looked on. The theme of his talk was apology, reparation, and forgiveness, delivered at the 'Reconciliation, Intergenerational Trauma and Higher Education' colloquium in February.The Grossröhrsdorf Apology is in some ways reminiscent of South Africa's own path to truth and reconciliation. South Africans also experience multiple levels of trauma as a result of the country's fraught past, compounded by current stigma and shame around HIV, race, class and sexual orientation, said HAICU director and colloquium architect Dr Cal Volks.
Should South African 'bystanders' be doing more to acknowledge what did or didn't take place in South Africa, asked Volks? "Do we need more fora and facilities for discussion, healing, and reconciliation in appropriate settings, including institutions like UCT?"
Littig's presentation, delivered with the help of translator Dr Tania Katzschner, was especially close to home for Volks – who is one of Suze Schönwald's granddaughters.
Volks only heard more detail of what happened to her family from Pastor Littig later on in life.
For her, the burden of acknowledgment is felt at two levels: as a descendant of German Jews, and as a white South African. This experience has only deepened her exploration of the many narratives around the possible impact of intergenerational trauma and the need to address it at Higher Education Institutions.
The full weight of trauma, whether at the hands of Nazis or perpetrators of apartheid atrocities, is often experienced by the second and third generations, said Ken Wald, professor of American Jewish Culture and Society at the University of Florida, in a Skype interview. Wald, too, is a survivor of intergenerational trauma, and a descendant of Heinz Schönwald.
For both Volks and Wald, learning the story of Curt and Regina Schönwald returned a lost piece of history, and gave them the chance to make a level of peace with the past – interrupting the transmission of trauma from one generation to the next.
Volks has since visited the memorial to Curt and Regina and is acutely aware of the importance of acknowledgement and responsibility.
"Acknowledgements of the failure to interrupt violence are important. They have the potential to facilitate 'empathic repair' by allowing the victims and perpetrators to engage with each other."
HSRC seminar
HIV prevalence among children and youths has dropped, while there has been an increase among adults in South Africa.
The good news, said Dr Olive Shisana, CEO of the Human Science Research Council (HSRC), is the increase among adults is because people with HIV are living longer due to antiretroviral therapy (ART).
"The significant drop in children aged 0-4 years is as a result of a reduction in mother-to-child transmission. Our policy of prioritising children is very good because it means that children are living much longer," she added.
Shisana recently presented the findings of the 2012 South African National HIV Prevalence, Incidence and Behaviour Survey at an interactive session about HIV, science and community engagement at UCT. The event was hosted by the International AIDS Society, the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation, and the HIV/AIDS, Inclusivity and Change Unit (HAICU). Other speakers included Professor Linda-Gail Bekker, Deputy Director of The Desmond Tutu HIV Centre and Cal Volks, director of HAICU.
Awarded a Sash Grant
Research Development Grant to promote Social Science methods in Health Science Research 7 April 2014
The South African Social Science and HIV (SASH) Fellows Programme was launched last month. The programme is a key component of the NIH R24 funded collaboration between UCT and Brown University that seeks to strengthen HIV social science research and training. The award covers the period 2013-2018 and amounts in total to over R20 million.
The project – ‘Partnerships for the Next Generation of HIV Social Science in South Africa’ – is led by Professor Mark Lurie (Department of Epidemiology, Brown University) and Dr Christopher J. Colvin (School of Public Health and Family Medicine (SoPHFM), Faculty of Health Sciences, UCT). Among its aims are to develop academic capacity through curriculum development, teaching and mentoring, and fostering a culture of excellence in the interdisciplinary HIV social science research environment. Fellows who are selected receive various types of support including funding, mentorship and training opportunities. Mentorship and support is based both at UCT and at Brown University....
The SASH team from HAICU—Cal Volks, Sianne Abrahams, Lucina Reddy and Stella Kyobula-Mukoza—will be engaging in a group SASH project.
The South African Social Science and HIV (SASH) Fellows Programme was launched last month. The programme is a key component of the NIH R24 funded collaboration between UCT and Brown University that seeks to strengthen HIV social science research and training. The award covers the period 2013-2018 and amounts in total to over R20 million.
The project – ‘Partnerships for the Next Generation of HIV Social Science in South Africa’ – is led by Professor Mark Lurie (Department of Epidemiology, Brown University) and Dr Christopher J. Colvin (School of Public Health and Family Medicine (SoPHFM), Faculty of Health Sciences, UCT). Among its aims are to develop academic capacity through curriculum development, teaching and mentoring, and fostering a culture of excellence in the interdisciplinary HIV social science research environment. Fellows who are selected receive various types of support including funding, mentorship and training opportunities. Mentorship and support is based both at UCT and at Brown University....
The SASH team from HAICU—Cal Volks, Sianne Abrahams, Lucina Reddy and Stella Kyobula-Mukoza—will be engaging in a group SASH project.
 |
| The SASH fellows gather at Rhodes Memorial (Photograph by Leah Harrison) |
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)