ESST has developed a comprehensive HIV/AIDS prevention and information project for large-scale national and community implementation.

The ESST campaign is based on both theoretical and field research. Above all, it encourages families and communities to play an active and informed role in the fight against the spread of HIV/AIDS.

AIDS AWARENESS

The core learning material of the ESST HIV/AIDS Project is highly end-user friendly — accessible, interesting and relevant to the target communities. Because of its highly visual character, it draws even non-literate people spontaneously into the discussion.

The information is captured in two core publications:

A full-colour 40-page end-user learning book

HIV/AIDS: Let's Talk About Life

A 32-page facilitators' guidebook

AIDS: We Need to Talk

Supplementary material is being developed to address:

• assertiveness training for women in our society
• the role of the elderly in caring for people living with AIDS and AIDS orphans
• the potential role of church groups in our society to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS
• the potential role of youth groups and youth centres, and
• advice to communities on establishing co-operative day care centres and community support networks

In terms of empowering our society to make a strong and lasting civic contribution to the prevention of HIV/AIDS, the objective of the Project is to bring awareness and understanding to communities. Appropriate intervention by teams of ESST implementers and other regional role players, supported by sympathetic information and support networks, will give families within the communities an opportunity to:

• learn to talk freely about HIV/AIDS
• obtain real results in prevention by making the issue a shared problem
• accept a sense of caring for those afflicted by the disease, and
• experience a sense of control over the further course of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and their own future.

With the right kind of help, the present feeling of powerlessness can gradually be changed into one of empowerment and self-worth.

HOW WE CHOOSE THE COMMUNITIES WE WORK WITH

All communities are equally in need of help, since AIDS is everywhere. But when we do have to select a new community to work with, we look at the following in order to impact on the most lives:

• general impoverishment and lack of amenities
• demotivation and frustration 
• a lack of a community, political or economic vision for the future
• poor civic structures and/or high levels of social disorder, and
• a high incidence of HIV/AIDS and AIDS-related deaths.

Community leaders (civic, churches, schools, youth, clinics, etc.) are empowered (through the facilitators' guide book) to take the lead and ensure that the community at large — with the end-users' material in their hands — becomes fully informed about HIV/AIDS, its deadly effects, and how it can be avoided through a change in lifestyle. At-risk individuals are alerted and referred to clinics in the area.

By focusing on close social interaction, co-operative learning and motivation is assured, resulting in a strong, open-ended spillover effect into the community.

THE EXTENT OF THE PROJECT

ESST plans to make at least 1 000 000 copies of HIV/AIDS: Let's Talk About Life and approximately 50 000 copies of AIDS: We Need to Talk available in every 12-month cycle. Interestingly, each copy of HIV/AIDS: Let's Talk About Life is read by several people — as many as eight or nine in the typical extended family. This makes the cost per person exposed to the campaign extremely low.