CURRENT PROJECTS

Current DramAidE Projects include the following:

• The JHESSA Project
• Act Alive Project
• Youth For Change Project
• Owakho Owami Project
• Peer Education Training Project
• Dance4Life partner project
• NDA Project
• Greater Good Project
• KAPB Study and risk assessment in the Higher Education Sector
• DramAidE research project in conjunction with CCMS
 
The JHESSA Project  

This project is a continuation of the Health Promoters Prevention project, with the following additional projects Faith Based Organisations Project, OVC Project, VCT and Treatment and Care Project.  AAA-Ha Project and Scrutinise Projects.  Funding for all of these projects comes from JHESSA. 

• Health Promoters Project
Health Promoters are young people living openly and positively with HIV and working on Higher Education campuses. They are employed by the Institution and supported by Johns Hopkins University Centre for Communications Program/ HCP SA Partners.

A specific goal of the project is to create opportunities for closer interaction between people living openly with HIV and other students. The purpose is to help students to personalise the risk of HIV infection, demystify HIV/AIDS, and break stigma and deal more effectively with health and relationship problems.

The health promoters are required to:

• Form support groups for those infected and affected by AIDS.
• Sustain the new support groups using DramAidE methodologies.
• Promote the concept of voluntary counselling and testing (VCT).
• Engage in face-to-face dialogue with students to break the stigma and promote positive living.
• Enhance or add value to existing peer education and HIV/AIDS projects on campuses.

This dialogue-orientated strategy has been shown to effectively help students to personalise the risk of HIV infection, break the stigma and deal more effectively with their personal health and relationship problems.

• Faith Based Organisations Project
DramAidE works with FBOs to appoint Community Facilitators that will work to implement projects for prevention of infection with HIV, by focusing on issues of abstinence and faithfulness in churches and in the community.  

• OVC Project
DramAidE works with community organisations to provide training to care givers and facilitators who work with orphans and vulnerable children.  We are currently in the prices of developing a package of training materials that will assist these individuals in understanding the nature and needs of psycho-social support, as well as providing them with a story-book and training on a series of workshops that can be done with young people who have lost family members to HIV/AIDS.  

• VCT and Treatment and Care Project
DramAidE trains Health Promoters on campuses, and community facilitators to run campaigns to promote Voluntary Counselling and Testing, to conduct workshops to educate students and others about VCT, to conduct one-on-one counselling sessions and to provide information about access to appropriate referral services for those who need them.

• AAA-HA! Project
The Applied Arts For Awareness Of HIV/AAIDS (AAA-HA!) Project is a new initiative in tertiary institutions, spearheaded by DramAidE. 
The idea behind the project is to work with academic departments to engage arts students in the conscious creation of art for HIV/AIDS awareness.    In particular, to explore the concept of relationships and faithfulness and what these mean to young people in the age of HIV/AIDS.  In 2008, DramAidE is piloting this project with Drama Departments on 3 campuses.

• Scrutinise Project
The Scrutinise campaign is a JHESSA initiative with partners DramAidE, HIVAN, Matchboxology and Ulwazi Radio.   Using a series of animated TV adverts (animerts) as it’s premise, the campaign involves training Health Promoters and other students on 5 campuses to run arts festivals around the themes of HIV and AIDS.  These festivals will culminate in a large-scale concert event on each campus.

This project involves testing HIV/AIDS prevention strategies in the context of university campuses.  The key messages for the campaign are of abstinence, faithfulness and condom usage.  The campaign is funded by JHHESA (Johns Hopkins Health and Education South Africa).

DramAide Health Promoters

Act Alive project

This project is facilitated in Richards Bay Minerals supported schools and communities.   The project is funded by RBM.

The main aim of the project is to initiate and sustain a communication process that develops the capacity of schools to create a healthy physical, emotional and spiritual environment in which children can live, learn and play. A further aim is to promote good health in the community where the schools are situated.  More specifically, the aim is to lower the rate of HIV infections and to promote a caring attitude to people living with HIV and AIDS.

The DramAidE facilitator works with teachers and scholars to generate action media in order to promote good health with special reference to prevention of infection by HIV, and the care and support of people living with AIDS. Developing ‘action media’ is a participatory approach to communication and is a method for training teachers and peer educators. Action media products are made by a school community in order to explore ideas, stimulate discussion about new information and initiate problem solving. These products or materials are culturally based and include songs and dances, plays, poems and posters. This approach is part of the life skills and HIV/AIDS education programme provided in schools.

The project includes the following activities:

• Networking with stakeholders to develop a healthy school policy
• Developing and capacity building youth clubs to initiate health promoting projects
• Training teachers to provide life skills, sexuality training and the prevention of HIV/AIDS, and providing support and follow-up through Creating ongoing partnerships with schools
• Developing peer educators
• Making plays with out-of-school youth for performance in schools and at community events
• Working with parents, school-governing bodies and the local community to build support for the project and developing a network of support services

Participating schools create health clubs that organise their own health-promotion programmes. These clubs are launched to the school and surrounding community. Programmes initiated by the clubs include working towards creating a healthy school environment. Matters of hygiene, school cleanliness, safe drinking water and healthy food in tuck shops are some of the issues addressed. Schools have organised market gardens, school clean-ups and awareness campaigns regarding sexually transmitted infections (STIs). They are encouraged to organise activities around the South African health calendar. Through quilt workshops, parents are encouraged to support health promoting activities in the school and initiate similar projects in the community.

DramAide club members host an open day	Young people perform traditional songs with words changed to include HIV/AIDS awareness messages	Food gardens have become a popular activity

The project uses the same strategies as the Act Alive Project for preventing violence in schools.  It is funded by the Norwegian Students Academy International Helpfund (SAIH).

Through working with students, teachers and parents, DramAidE seeks to understand the presence of violence in South African schools, and through exploring concepts of human rights, self esteem and life-skills, to reduce this violence. 

Plays and storytelling are part of creating awareness and helping the healing process	Communities host health awareness events involving young and old alike

Communities gather to share information and celebrate health days	Workshops ensure that young people have adequate and correct information

DramAidE partnered with the local branch of the international organisation Dance4Life to assist with their Skills4Life project, and the Heart Connection Tour.  The Skills4Life project  is a series of workshops in schools that focus on life-skills training and HIV/AIDS.  DramAidE helped to develop the workshop series for this programme, and DramAidE staff conducted a pilot of the project in schools in 2007.    The Heart Connection Tour (HCT) is a high-energy, informative and interactive performance tour, which involves peer educators and young people living with HIV and AIDS in a Tour Team which travels to schools.

NDA Project

This project was done in partnership with HIVAN, DramAidE and the Mzimela Health Partnership Committee.  The aim of the project was to develop a participatory training programme for learners from schools in the Uthungulu (specifically the Mzimela/ Ongoye) district of KwaZulu-Natal.  Learners were trained in ethnographic research methods and following this constellated into five core project/interest areas, namely:
The Environment (flora and fauna), Cultural History, Music, dance and drama, Traditional Food and Visual arts and crafts.
A co-op was formed in the district with the various community representatives to assist and monitor the process of the income generating projects with participants.
The overall Objective was to magnify the role of culture, the arts and cultural tourism, creating income generating projects for the community development and poverty alleviation.

Greater Good Project

This project is also known as the SASIX Project called "Youth Working Together to Fight HIV/AIDS"

The programme aims to work for the promotion of positive lifestyles among youth at risk of HIV/AIDS, and among youth already infected and affected by HIV/AIDS, through a multi-media and communications strategy.  Also important is the need to address social norms and practices that inform risky behaviour.  The aim is to create an enabling environment for behaviour change and adoption of positive lifestyles.

The project uses interactive media to mobilize communities within the Mthonjaneni municipality to undertake campaigns around issues of sex and sexuality, HIV/AIDS, gender and cultural practices that are harmful to youth development.  The Action media approach is used, whereby the target group makes media.  Making participatory or action media empowers the group, develops technical and life skills and makes effective use of available resources.  Action media includes plays, songs and dances, posters and murals.  It is also envisaged that a number of quilt panels will be produced - these are cloth panels with pledges signed by youth that will be displayed in prominent places as a sign of commitment by youth to fight HIV/AIDS and avoid risky behaviour.

DramAidE is assisting CADRE (Centre for AIDS Development, Research and Evaluation) to conduct a study at Higher Education Institutions across the country to determine the levels of HIV infection on campuses, and to determine students attitudes towards HIV/AIDS and risk.