20 years of HIV and Inclusivity Education at UCT

UCT Monday paper Volume 33.04 19 May 2014

20 years of HIV/AIDS education
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

Back to latest edition

Trauma interrupted: The role of acknowledging blame and responsibility
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

UCT Monday paper April 2014 
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 SASH fellows gather at Rhodes Memorial (Photograph by Leah Harrison)

http://www.uct.ac.za/dad/news/?id=8324&t=dn
HAICU makes its presence felt at conference29 November 2012
Leading the way: From left, HAICU's Cal Volks, Lucina Reddy, Zaaida Vallie, Sianne Abrahams and Stella Kyobula-Mukoza at the HEAIDS conference.
Higher Education HIV/AIDS Programme (HEAIDS), a division of Higher Education South Africa (HESA), is holding a conference at UCT, titled Researching the Applied and Applying the Research, which runs from 28 to 30 November.
UCT's HIV/AIDS Institutional Co-ordination Unit (HAICU) is responsible for co-ordinating the UCT policy, curriculum and co-curriculum response, and has had a number of papers accepted by peer review on several relevant topics. HAICU staff will be presenting these papers at the conference.
Director Cal Volks is talking on why HIV/AIDS should be addressed at a university under the transformation portfolio, as it is at UCT. Volks has been conducting research with students living with HIV at UCT, and exploring whether their experience of the UCT environment is an inclusive one.
Lucina Reddy, project officer at HAICU, is presenting on a curriculum project executed with Fabian Saptouw of UCT's Michaelis School of Fine Art and HAICU's Cal Volks. Data on UCT students' perceptions and behaviour around sexual concurrency and HIV risk informed the art installations, produced by UCT art students, for a co-curricula awareness event on the campus in August this year.
In turn, Stella Kyobula-Mukoza, also a project officer at HAICU, is presenting an evaluation of the UCT HIV Testing Drive, with Cal Volks and Lucina Reddy.  Evaluation is a crucial element as HIV/AIDS funding has been cut across the board.

http://www.humanities.uct.ac.za/news/?id=8326&t=dn
Higher education's HIV and AIDS programmes get the third degree 30 November 2012
Thought leaders: UCT's Cal Volks has edited a special issue of the AIDS Review series, focusing on the role the higher education can play in the fight against HIV and AIDS.
A special issue of the widely known AIDS Review series is taking a long, hard look at the role that higher education, and its HIV and AIDS programmes, can play in combating the pandemic.
Launched at the Researching the Applied and Applying the Research conference, hosted by the Higher Education HIV/AIDS Programme (HEAIDS), a division of Higher Education South Africa, or HESA, at UCT from 28 to 30 November, the issue is titled Third Degree. It is edited by Cal Volks, director of UCT's HIV/AIDS Institutional Co-ordination Unit.
The responses by higher education to HIV and AIDS are significant because of the role such institutions play in creating and disseminating knowledge, and because of their contribution to developing the country's human resources, says Volks.
While many broad policy frameworks have been in place at institutions for a few years, in some cases not enough implementation is occurring, she notes.
"More of a specific focus may be required around determining the institutional barriers to higher education HIV/AIDS policy implementation," she added.
AIDS Review is produced by the Centre for the Study of AIDS (CAS) at the University of Pretoria, and is edited by CAS director, Mary Crewe. Volks quotes Crewe when she says their motivation for bringing out the special edition was to encourage higher education's responses to HIV and AIDS to be "challenging, critical, controversial, and informed".
The edition also has contributions from Professor Relebohile Moletsane of the University of KwaZulu-Natal(his article grew out of a presentation he made at the HAICU 2011 Narratives and Nostalgia in HIV and AIDS and Transformation Education Colloquium on the role of culture and cultural nostalgia in HIV/AIDS peer education) and from Professor Sylvia Tamale of Makerere University. The University of Pretoria's Pierre Brouard also contributed a thought-provoking piece about how institutional integrity can influence responses to HIV and AIDS.