Through their support groups, PWN continues to address such vital topics as treatment literacy, accessing health care treatment, preventing the spread of HIV/AIDs, fighting stigma, and leadership training for outreach coordinators.

Beyond the day-to-day activities, PWN’S director Prudence Mabele continues her impressive advocacy efforts. She is very visible and well connected which greatly serves the organization’s members as opportunities arise beyond PWN’s core planned activities. For example, she was part of the national planning process to fight AIDs and she generally schedules all of PWN’s activities so that they are synchronized with broader movements (health rights campaigns, violence against women awareness raising activities, TB testing offered by allied groups etc.). Having been a part of the national AIDs planning process, she is abreast of all of the medical trials going on in Johannesburg that group members can access if they wish to be a part of the newest possibilities for treatment. And she has liaised with a social worker that is training the PWN groups on grief and loss counseling.

And, as you’ll see below, a recent site visit in April by IDEX program officers to one of PWN’s support groups gives a great sense of life in the townships and how your generous gift continues to provide meaningful services for many women and their families:

“We first went to the township of Wattville to meet with one of the groups supported by Positive Women's Network (PWN), located an hour away from downtown Johannesburg. Wattville is home to approx 100 to 150 families. The support group has 57 members

Right now, the main challenge that people face here is unemployment. Many families have had to depend on social grants provided by the government, but these barely cover rent and food.

Monique, a support group member of Wattville since 2002, shared with us how difficult it has been to find a job. She joined the support group to be part of a women's group in her township. A year later, she tested positive for HIV during her pregnancy with her fourth daughter. Pregnancy is a common way for women to find out that they're HIV-positive. Because she was already part of the support group she knew the importance of coming out as an HIV-positive woman. Not hiding that you are HIV-positive is empowering and can raise awareness that it is possible to live positively and without shame. That Monique was motivated to do this speaks to the great support system PWN has cultivated for hundreds of women like her.

Every Thursday, Monique brings her daughters to the support group meetings. She wants them to be aware of HIV, especially since they are young women. And young women living in townships have a high probability of being raped. This is a harsh reality in South Africa, where a woman is raped every 18 seconds and where HIV is an unfortunately part of so many lives.

The main activity of this support group is treatment literacy. HIV-positive women learn how to access treatment and the importance of continuing with treatment. The group is also attending workshops to learn how to start additional support groups and how to counsel each other.

Pictures:

• Prudence (left) and Monique (JPG)

PWN has been continuing to provide basic education on HIV/AIDS, care, and support to those infected and affected by HIV/AIDS. Over the last several months, PWN provided training for:
•   30 women to be leaders capable of general HIV/AIDS counseling to other women
•   20 women to lead support groups for people infected/affected by HIV/AIDS
•   30 women to gain entrepreneurial skills such as catering, craft and jewelry production
•   100 women to gain access to information on antiretroviral therapy, its importance, and tools and resources to help them remain on regular treatment regimens

PWN has also been active with their advocacy and outreach activities. Since our last update, they have continued to mobilize their participants to engage in awareness campaigns. Impressively, they helped organize a march of about 1,500 women for the One in Nine Campaign, which advocated that the government take action to prevent violence against women and children. Outreach activities like these not only benefit the townships as a whole but gives the women involved a sense of empowerment and control in their own lives.

Throughout the last 3 months, they also conducted extensive door-to-door campaigns in various townships to raise awareness. The biggest campaign was on World AIDS Day, December 1st. In these door-to-door campaigns, members canvas their township to pass out condoms, brochures, and talk about the benefits of joining a support group, and encourage their neighbors to learn more about HIV/AIDS prevention.

The South African Departments of Health and Social Welfare have recognized PWN as an important partner due to its outstanding service delivery to women infected and affected by HIV and AIDS.

PWN is also filling crucial holes created by the AIDS epidemic. They recently partnered with the South Africa Department of Home Affairs to enable access to identity cards and birth certificates for children whose mothers were PWN members and passed away before preparing these documents for their children. This identification is critical to the success of the child: orphaned children must have documents to receive grants to eat and to continue with schooling.

This past May, Positive Women’s Network (PWN) facilitated anti-retroviral(ARV) drug treatment training to 42 group members and coordinators from 4 support groups. In this training, support group members learned how ARV treatment works for women living with HIV. The training emphasized the importance of using ARVs when you are HIV positive and how otherwise the immune system would deteriorate.

The women who participated in this training will use this learning to help their door-to-door campaigns. Through door-to-door campaigns members are able to reach out to people within their communities. By introducing PWN, the members are able to talk about the benefits of joining a support group and encourage their neighbors to address HIV/AIDS stigma directly.

In addition to the formation of support groups, PWN also organizes community forums that are held every quarter with all support group members. They recently held such a forum.

The forums are a way for several support groups to come together to participate in a educational action or campaign for larger issues that affect their area. This provides an opportunity for support group members to become more active and share experiences with other support group members that PWN facilitates.

PWN has seen women who participate in their support groups and forums become more active in various campaigns to address local community issues. The latest campaign initiated by PWN is called the “777 campaign” and it seeks to bring awareness on violence against women. The “777 Campaign” was launched to commemorate the deaths of Sizakele Sigasa, PWN’s Outreach Coordinator, and her friend, Salome Masoa who were raped and murdered on July 7, 2007. Women participating in the support groups and forums are currently following up on two rape cases in the local courts, as a result of their participation in the “777 campaign”.

Not only are women receiving counseling through the support groups facilitated by PWN, but they are also exercising their self-confidence as they start to become more proactive in ways that can help the whole community and particularly women.

In October 2007, PWN reported details of their training program, where trainers carry out HIV/AIDS treatment literacy workshops. In the past two months, six newly trained trainers on HIV treatment literacy provided information and brought resources to their support groups. As a result, 60 women have benefited from the workshops led by these new trainers.

Since October, PWN has also facilitated counseling for over 100 women living with HIV/AIDS. These counseling sessions allow women to talk openly about their illness and identify ways to cope with depression and the stigma they face as a result of being HIV positive. This is critical, as women often have no one to turn to for support after being diagnosed as HIV positive.

Women’s depression is frequently compounded by poverty and a lack of access to resources, which PWN also works to address through workshops and skills development. In fact recent research* highlights the increasing evidence of a direct correlation between heightened suicide rates and a diagnosed HIV positive status. PWN is working to turn this around through counseling and support group programs.

* Suicidal Behaviour in South Africa by Lourens Schlebusch, 2005 University of Kwa-Zulu Natal Press.

PWN has established a strong network of 14 support groups, and are currently trying to recruit more women to participate as well as starting new support groups. The support groups involve women who are infected and affected by HIV/AIDS.

As part of this process, PWN recently trained 20 support group facilitators. In their trainings, the facilitators learn to manage a support group and gain skills on facilitating and resolving group conflicts. Facilitators are also trained to know about different toolkits and booklets to distribute to support group members as well as how to bring in new members.

The main way PWN recruits members are through door-to-door campaigns where members canvas their township and talk about the benefits of joining a support group and encourage their neighbors to address stigma directly. Additionally, family members who have lost their loved one to AIDS invite PWN members to funerals. During these “Funeral Outreach” meetings, PWN members educate the family and friends about the disease, how they can get tested, and what other resources are available to them.

PWN’s support groups help to raise awareness about the impact of HIV/AIDS on women in South Africa. Their objective is to empower these women by providing them with psychosocial support and peer counseling to learn to live positively by dealing with this virus and to share this with their families. The support group provides a space for women to have an open dialogue about their lives as well as sharing information about HIV-prevention and treatment.

Training of trainers on Treatment literacy

Positive Women’s Network (PWN) recently ran a series of HIV treatment literacy workshops for support groups to inform people of risk-reduction life choices. PWN carries out these three five-day workshops on a regular basis. During the recent workshops, PWN trained 160 women on HIV treatment literacy and traditional healing medicine. PWN used the Population Council's manual on Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART) during the trainings.

The training covered critical topics such as HIV and Antiretroviral treatment, how fight disease, the importance of sticking to a regular treatment regime, and tools to help people remain on a treatment regime. These trainings are important as few women have access to any information about HIV/AIDS nor do they know of treatment or resources to help them. Once they are able to establish a treatment regimen their health improves. They become stronger and are able to hold down a job and in turn provide for their children and families.