At a PSAf media workshop on Communicating HIV and AIDS prevention, journalists in Swaziland resolved to take a stand against those who moralise prevention interventions and take a judgemental stance, saying this would slow down progress in tackline the pandemic.

The media practitioners said instead of being judgmental, the media should be more concerned with educating people on HIV and AIDS. The Kingdom of Swaziland has sone of the world’s highest prevalence rates. 

“We need to focus on educating people on the risky behaviours and how they can promote themselves, scandalising people and reporting on personal scandals of people involved in risky behaviours is not the right way,” said a journalist from the Swazi TV.

The workshop was organised by PSAf under the ‘Communicating HIV prevention in Southern Africa’, which is funded by the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) to empower local communities to drive the HIV prevention response in Southern Africa. 

A few dys after the workshop, one of the resource persons Nontobeko Mbuyane said she was now receiving many media enquiries.

“I was so happy about the impact the Swaziland workshop made, I had a number of journalists calling me and verifying certain information on PMTCT since they were reporting on it,” she said.

After the training, the journalists were granted fellowships to report on the issues that came out of the workshop. The fellows are expected to produce in depth articles on HIV and AIDS for print and electronic media. Action plans were also drawn for media houses on how they would work with radio listening clubs. The authorities also undertook to work with the media to ensure a constant supply of information, not to only release information when there are workshops.

In light of the success of radio listening clubs, a recommendation was also made to look into the possibility of establishing Readers Clubs for Newspapers.