Media practitioners in Lesotho say they are now in a good position to comprehensively report on HIV and AIDS, and such emerging issues following their participation in a media training on Communicating HIV prevention in Southern Africa. 

The workshop was held on 27th and 28th October 2011 in Maseru, Lesotho, bringing together 15 journalists from both print and electronic media. It is part of ongoing activities under the “Communicating HIV prevention in Southern Africa” project, which is funded by the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC).

The aim of the workshop was to advance effective communication on the pandemic and key national prevention issues and priorities, empowering local communities to drive the HIV prevention response. This is in line with the project’s objective to promote open dialogue on cultural issues around Multiple Concurrent Partners (MCPs), prevention of mother to child transmission and HIV prevention for Sexual Minority Groups. It is expected that dialogue around these issues will lead to behaviour change and adoption of available interventions at individual and community level. 

To give participants a clear picture of the issues, presentations were given on the following: Scope of the National HIV and AIDS epidemic and Response; Reasons for High HIV prevalence; Multiple Concurrent sexual partners-fuelling Driving HIV infection in Southern Africa; national PMTCT Response; HIV among Sexual Minority Groups. 

The interactive nature of the workshop enabled the participants to express themselves freely and easily seek clarification on issues that may not have come out clearly.

At the end of the workshop, the journalists said they appreciated the presentations on HIV prevention, and felt better positioned to develop stories on issues around prevention. To demonstrate tha there was increased understating on the part of journalists; a sample of the issues they raised as part of their group presentations brought out increased understanding.  The participants identified some GAPS in the current HIV prevention and possible areas for advocacy.

Based on the information acquired during the workshop, the journalists also identified some advocacy issues which they felt should be prioritised in the national response. These include reaching out to minority groups like herdboys and men having sex with men. The journalists also pledged to raise debate on the fact that the law does not recognise homosexuality, yet it was known that the practice was rampant across the country.

Boitumelo Kobi a freelance journalist said that unless these issues were discussed openly, it would be difficult for the country to tackle the problems.

The participants also shared ideas on how to develop good interactive radio programmes  to tackle the issues.

 After the training, the journalists were granted fellowships to report on the issues that came out of the workshop. All journalists demonstrated interest and are expected to produce newspaper features and radio and television documentaries. They have also continued to communicate with PSAf expressing interest to take part in the fellowships, interactive radio programmes and the radio listening clubs.