AIDS CONFERENCE IN SOUTH AFRICAN CITY OF DURBAN BETWEEN JULY 18 AND 22 OF GREAT HELP TO MOST DELEGATES

(TWO OF THE SCORES OF JOURNALISTS FROM SOUTH AFRICA AND AROUND THE WORLD WHO COVERED THE 21 ST INTERNATIONAL AIDS CONFERENCE. IN THE PICTURE ARE MAYA JAGJIVAN AND PRABASHINI MOODLEY OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION(SABC)

The 21st International Aids Conference, held in the South African coastal city of Durban over the past five days, has provided a platform not only for policy makers, scientists, researchers, multi-national companies, and international personalities to highlight the tremendous work against HIV-AIDs, but it also was an opportunity for activist groups to highlight their concerns. But most importantly it provided an opportunity for thousands of delegates to learn and further equip themselves for anti-Aids programmes when they return to their home countries. The conference attracted more than 20 000 delegates from more than 180 countries around the world. Most of the delegates were from the worst-affected regions in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. Nearly 20-million people in Africa are afflicted with the Aids virus, while South Africa has the highest number in the world with nearly seven-million affected. During the course of the conference, I inter-acted and spoke to a number of delegates from Africa and Asia to get a picture of the pandemic in their countries, the efforts being undertaken to overcome the pandemic and how the conference will help them in their programmes against the disease.

(Picture of Ms Funsho Olugbemi) Ms Funhso Olugbemi is a Development Policy Planner and Project Co-Ordinator on HIV for the Nigerian Government in the capital, Abuja. She said the situation of HIV-AIDs was serious in Nigeria with millions afflicted. The Government had many programmes to treat affected people but they had to do more to help all the afflicted people. She said their delegation was very keen on the new cost-effective HIV vaccine that had been developed and the combined treatment for TB and HIV. “We are interested”, she said, “in the new HIV vaccine that is being developed”. “We think it will go a long way to help to curb, to treat, and to prevent the HIV scourge. “We are also interested in the programmes and vaccines to treat the three major infectious – HIV, tuberculosis and HVC together. We believe his is also a new innovation that will be very good and it will go a long way towards the prevention of HIV,” said Ms Olugbemi. She also found that civil society groups in South Africa were very vocal and this was noticed when they held demonstrations at the conference. These groups promoted the cause of homosexuals, bi-sexuals, transgenders, and sex workers. “These groups work together with the Government to tackle the Aids pandemic. In Nigeria, we don’t have this co-operation. So when we go back we want to bring as much as possible the groups together. “You know when one side is doing one thing and the other is doing another, you will not really be able to achieve much. But if you can bring civil society together to work with the Government, the rate of achievement will be higher and we can move forward from there.”

(Picture of Ms Josephine Balati) Ms Josephine Balati, Director of Health Services and Co-ordinator of 900 health services for faith-based Social Services Commission in Tanzania, is another delegate who said the Aids Conference was of “tremendous benefit” to her and her fellow delegates. She said more than one million people in Tanzania were affected by the pandemic and currently there were more than 600 000 under AR treatment. They worked very closely with the Tanzanian Government in providing medical care and trying to stem the pandemic. She said the conference had provided them an opportunity to become aware of new vaccines and programmes to fight the disease. “We have learnt that there is still a lot of work to be done and we need to join hands in this campaign against the disease,” she said. “All stakeholders need to closely engage the communities in the fight against HIV-AIDs, recoginising the different groups in the communities, and the whole issue of human rights has to be respected so that everybody will be able to access services.” Ms Balati added: “What I am going to take back is the whole issue of rolling out Virolode testing services, combination of fighting TB and HIV-Aids, close engagement of the communities, and also to make sure that all the stake-holders work together to fight HIV-AIDs.”

(Picture of Namgay Tshering of Bhutan) The Director of Health Services in the tiny Kingdom of Bhutan in south Asia, Mr Namgay Tshering, is another delegate who found the 21st aids conference to be great help. He said they faced a rise in HIV-AIDs because of the proximity of his country to India, which has one of the highest number of affected people in the Asian region. He and his fellow delegates, he said, had benefited from the conference sessions on new vaccines and the interaction with fellow delegates. “The learnings that I will be taking back from this conference,” he said, “would be the findings from the abstract presentations on the elimination of mother-to-child transmission”. “In Bhutan we have noticed there is an increase in mother-to-child transmission of HIV virus and at the same time. We have also had the opportunity of interacting with colleagues from all the regions of the world,” said Mr Tshering.

(Picture of Bruce Guma) Mr Bruce Guma of Kampala, Uganda, is an aids activist and leader of the non-government organisation, Aids Rights Alliance. He said almost every community had been affected in Uganda. “While a lot has been achieved in providing education for the people and treatment for those affected, not everyone is being treated,” he said. As an activist, he wanted to see all the speeches and programmes announced at the conference being translated into reality. “We have the ambitious 90/90/90 campaign, and we have the vaccines that are being presented,” he said, “and we want these to actually being translated into addressing the pandemic. In most cases it does not translate into helping my grand-mother in the village who is actually living with HIV”. He would like to see resources being allocated in such way that all role players are involved and finally the affected people are assisted. “The person, the human being who is living with HIV, how we actually help the people living with aids and making sure that resources reach the people who need them and how do we involve them, ” said Mr Guma. The latest five-day Aids conference in Durban witnessed a wide variety of multi-national and other organisations providing new vaccines, medications and remedies for the cure and prevention of the pandemic.

(Picture of Ed King and another official, Robyn Murray) One of the lesser-known non-government organisations is “In Practice Africa”, which provides a comprehensive curriculum on anti-retroviral therapy, on TB, and nursing care for health professionals. Mr Ed King, Chief Information Officer of the organisation, said they had just released a book, written by South African clinicians for health care professionals in the continent. The book has been released on CD and the internet. “It caters for medical practitioners who treat millions of patients around the continent and other parts of the world,” he said. “We have been doing HIV education for health care professionals around the world now since the 1990s. It ‘s very rewarding as well as very worthwhile thing to be doing. You know HIV changes so often, there’s always new drugs, new strategies, new approaches, so there’s always a need by health care professionals for education that will keep them up to date to make sure that their patients receive the best possible care that’s available right now. Continuing education for HIV is a hugely important need internationally and as much so in Africa than anywhere else.” He said education for Health Care professionals really played an important role in fighting the disease. “Hundreds of thousands, millions of lives have been saved by the dissemination of anti-retroviral therapy in Africa and that is possible by education that helps health care professionals to know how to use these drugs and how to get the most out of them, how to save their patients lives, so they play a very important role,” he said. Mr King said the International Aids Conference played a very important role in providing an opportunity for scientists, experts, and medical professionals to share their research findings and for those research to be made known to the outside the world. “Conferences like the International Aids conference serve two or three key purposes. Firstly, they have a place for policy makers, researches, people involved in prevention and so on to come together and share what they have learnt in one place with people working in another. So they are very important in a way in which people working in the field can learn from each other, find out what works and what doesn’t and disseminate those best practices internationally,” said Mr King.

(Picture of Professor Jerry Coovadia) One of the senior HIV-AIDs research specialists in South Africa, Professor Jerry Coovadia, Director of the Maternal, Adolescent and Child Health (or MATCH), was the chairperson of the Aids Conference in 2000. During this week he was also involved and presented a paper on the state of affairs of the disease in the country. Professor Coovadia said South Africa had made enormous progress in curbing and providing treatment to affected people. For instance South Africa had the largest anti-retroviral programme in the world with more than three million people on ARV treatment. But, he said, it was going to take some time in completely eradicating the disease. “I think we have gone a long way,” he said. “I mean we have made enormous progress globally and in South Africa, so there’s no doubt about that and we will continue to make progress. “To really eradicate it is going to be a long job but it’s not impossible given the advances in medicine, given the advances in what we know about genes and how genes can affect it, given our advances in the best forms of treatment and very important too is prevention – circumcision prevents, condoms prevents, change in sexual behaviour, monogamy prevents and so on. So I think it is possible but it is going to take a long time.” Although more than a million people had succumbed to the HIV virus since the pandemic broke out in the 1980s, the death rate today had been drastically reduced because of the various treatment and prevention programmes that are being carried out. He was most impressed with the success they had achieved in bringing down the mother-to-child infection rate. “The transmission rate used to be from the late 1980s to the 1990s for every 100 HIV positive women about 30 to 32 of the babies were infected. The figure now is phenomenally low, it’s under two percent - two out of every 100 women. So for every 100 HIV positive women under two babies are infected, which is like almost eliminating the disease.” Professor Coovadia said the situation of the HIV-AIDs pandemic was still quite severe in South Africa. “It’s still quite severe. If you take it globally, we probably still have the worst epidemic rate. Not only is the country most seriously affected than anywhere else in the world, it so happens that KwaZulu-Natal is the most seriously affected province for very many reasons. Those are really historical reasons about employment, migration of workers in mines and so on and the dislocation of established families. “As I said we have the biggest epidemic in the world, it’s in excess of six million. But because of the reasonably good infrastructure we had, I think it has gone down now, in the public sector we have been able to win many battles against HIV-AIDs. The biggest battles is to keep down the numbers and keep down the deaths and we have succeeded quite substantially in that way.” Dr Fareed Abdulla, CEO of the SA National Aids Council, was another Aids expert who in a final message at the conference called for behavioural change in order to drastically curb the spread of the disease. He said active measures must be taken to bring down the pandemic among all affected people. Nearly 37-million were affected around the world but only 17-million were receiving HIV treatment. “We need to do much more on treatment and much more on prevention. We need to tackle behavioural change, inter-generational sex and all those things that will prevent the spread of the disease. Most important of all is to prevent our young women from becoming infected. Young women between the ages of 15 and 25 are the worst affected and this is one of the main findings to come out of the conference. “Two thousand young women are being infected in South Africa every week and that’s a massive problem. The world has recoginised this, the government has recoginised this. All the NGOs here have recoginised this and that’s got to be the biggest new message out of this conference.” – ends subrygovender/durban

APPA – A LESSON FOR ALL YOUNG FAMILIES

ALL SOUTH AFRICANS OF WHATEVER RACE OR CULTURE MUST WATCH APPA BY SUBRY GOVENDER If young families with school-going children want to learn more about the needs of their children and why children should not be pushed to achieve the dreams of their parents, then South Africans must watch the newly-released Tamil drama movie, Appa. We watched the movie at the Sun Coast complex in Durban on Sunday, July 24, and came away with the deep feeling that the movie should be watched by all people – whatever their cultures or race. The movie, produced and directed by a not so well-known movie personality to South Africans, Samuthirakani, is about three fathers who have different views about the education of their children. Samuthirakani, who also plays the lead role, is the super role model dad (Appa) who wants his son to pursue his education without the modern day demands of most middle-class and wealthy parents. These include the desire for their children to attend the best private schools, to attain the highest marks, to qualify to attend the best higher educational institutions, and finally to travel and work abroad. ROLE MODEL APPA The role model Appa in this movie wants his son to progress at his own pace and not to be influenced by the dreams of other families. The role model Appa maintains his principled stance, despite at one stage giving in to the dreams of his wife, who is influenced by her neighbours. The different postures adopted by Appa and his wife lead to the wife leaving home and returning to her father’s home. The son of the role model Appa makes friends with two other boys whose fathers adopt different stances. SECOND APPA The second APPA only wants his son to be like the “Joneses” and goes to extreme lengths to isolate his son from other children. This leads to tragic developments in the end when the second father’s son dies after being severely beaten up in an institution where “strict discipline” is the norm. THIRD APPA The third APPA is a person who does not want to offend anyone and does not take any deliberate action to promote the education of his son. The boy, although not inclined to be a top student, attains honours as a poet. His poetry writing was ignored by his father but this led to the role model Appa helping him to achieve his dream. TRAGEDY The movie has a tragic ending and this is due to the demands of the second father. LESSONS FOR OUR YOUNG FAMILIES The movie, APPA, has a lot of lessons for our young families who have to cope with the demands of everyday life today. Whether they are in Durban, Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town or other cities, our young families will learn a great deal from APPA not to push their children too hard. Parents have to speak to their children and not ONLY make heavy demands to obtain the highest marks in their classes. It would be of great benefit to all our young families in South Africa if they watch APPA. It has English sub-titles and they will definitely understand the moral of the story.

GOLFER AT 92 SHOWS OTHERS A THING OR TWO ABOUT HITTING THE BALL STRAIGHT DOWN THE MIDDLE AND NOTCHING UP PUTTS

(Albert Funga with his playing friends – Sonny Moodley (74), Tim Doorsamy Mathen (73), Johnny Reddy (76) By Subry Govender

(Albert Funga at the Windsor Park Golf Course) When people reach the ripe old age of 90 and more, many of them say they are “dusted, down and out”. But this is not the case with a former ship engineer, 92-year-old Albert Funga, who plays a round of golf at the Windsor Park municipal golf course in Durban every Thursday morning. I came across the sprightly old man (or shall I say “young man”) when I was teamed up with him in a four-ball during a tournament at the course recently. At his age I did not expect him to pull his own cart or walk the 18 holes. He had his own recently-purchased two wheeler to play his game. Playing off a 36-handicap, one would have expected the ageing golfer to hit the ball into the trees and all over into the rough edges and bushes.

(Albert Funga with his playing friends) - But throughout the game, he surprised the other golfers by hitting the ball straight down the middle on the fairway, as far as 100 or 120 metres. On a par 3 he was on the green for two, on par fours he was on the green for three or four and on par fives, he was on the green for four, five or six. His putting was above par and making three or four points was not a big achievement. On this particular day (July 14 2016), he won second prize with 42 points. He was also a great sport and did not allow his age to deter him from being active at the tee-off points or on greens. He helped to pick up the tees of his fellow golfers after they had hit their drives, bending and picking the balls after completing his putting and even holding the flag while his fellow golfers were finishing off their putting. Funga, who lives at the Waterfall Retirement Village with his 93-year-old wife, Diana, rises at 4am every Thursday morning to get ready and to drive to Durban to join about 20 friends for the morning of golf. The first four ball tee-off at 6:30am. “I started playing golf at the Irene golf course, near Pretoria, when I was 20-years-old and doing my apprenticeship in engineering in the Pretoria area in the 1940s,” said Funga. “I remember at that time I used to pay two-and-half shillings for a round of golf and six pence for a caddy. I also played at the Germiston Golf Club and at all the golf courses in KwaZulu-Natal from Umzimkulu to Pongola. “Except for seven or eight years while I was out at sea working on ships, I have been playing golf now for 72 years,” he said.

According to the passionate golfer, his healthy long life is primarily due to his family background, his participation in sporting activities, especially golf, his strenuous work life as an engineer until his retirement in 1990, and his sober eating and drinking habits. The son of a Portuguese immigrant from Madeira, Funga was part of a large family of five sisters and four brothers. Although his father was a hard man who insisted on him concentrating on his school work and his apprenticeship as an engineer, he found time to play rugby and football in the Johannesburg region where he grew up. After graduating as an engineer in the 1940s, he worked for a company in Randburg before going to sea in 1948 for seven years. During this period he worked on the Union Castle from 1950 to 1955. He also during this period in 1952 married his wife who was from the small village of Romsey in England. After he returned to South Africa the same year, he worked for companies such as SAPPI, Dorman Long, Dorbyl and Samta Tools. When he fully retired in 1990, he started to play golf on a regular basis, at least two and three times a week “to keep fit and to generally enjoy life”. At the end of every golf game, he has one or two beers with his fellow team mates. And when he’s not playing golf, his days are taken up maintaining his two old motor cars – a Datsun Palsa which he has owned for the past 33 years and a Ford sedan, which he has kept for the past 16 years. “After the guarantees on the cars expired, I have been maintaining them myself. As an engineer I like to do all the maintenance and repairs myself,” he said. His days are also taken up looking after his wife, “who is not well”, and doing odd jobs around the house.

(Albert Funga enjoying a beer at the Athlone Golf Club) To relax, he has a set drinking pattern when not playing golf. “I have one beer every afternoon and then before supper, I have a double brandy. Then during supper I have a glass of red wine. My wife has a glass of white wine. “Then after supper, just before going to bed at 10pm, I have a double whisky.” When asked why he does not have a single brandy and whisky instead of a double, his response was as colourful as his life: “A bird cannot fly on one wing and that’s why I have doubles.” He now also cooks his own food. He does not buy any fast foods whatsoever. “Fast food is dangerous for our health,” he says. Asked how long he wants to continue to play golf, he responded by saying: “Another 10 years”. This means he will only throw away his clubs at the age of 102. Without any prodding, Funga said his long life is not attributed only to golf and healthy living but also to “lots of sex”. “But my wife will not like me to say this.” He and his wife have three children, two are settled in Australia and one in England. They also have six grand-children and six great-grand-children. All his children and grand-children are accountants, lawyers and business people.

(Funga with family members at their traditional village in Madeira Island) The sprightly old golfer has two memories about his surname and his date of birth that he will not forget easily. When his father arrived from the Madeira Island in the year 1900 at the age of 14, he went to the immigration office in Johannesburg to register his status. When his father was asked what was his surname, his father responded by saying: “D-arougo”, which was the family name from the village of Prazeres in Madeira. The immigration officer, without checking, wrote “Funga”. “From that day onwards our surname became Funga.” Then when he was born, the person who delivered him was a mid-wife who forget the date of his birth – November 23 1924. When she went to register him, she gave his birth date as December 11 1924. “These two episodes in my life will live in me for a long time,” he says. In order not to forget his roots and to pay tribute to his heritage, Funga took his entire family to Madeira three years ago and visited his father’s village of Prazeres. “We have no land there in the village but it’s a paradise that one should visit on a regular basis.” He’s the only surviving member of the Funga siblings. One elder sister lived up to the age of 94. - Ends – July 15 2016 subrygovender@gmail.com

AIDS ACTIVISTS AIR THEIR GRIEVANCES AT THE 21ST AIDS INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE IN DURBAN ON TUESDAY

(AIDS ACTIVISTS EXPRESSING THEIR VIEWS OPENLY AGAINST DISCRIMINATION AND ISOLATION) INTRO: The International Aids Conference in the South African coastal city of Durban enters its third day today (July 20). The conference opened on Monday with more than 18 000 delegates, including prominent leaders such as UN Secretary General Ban-ki-Moon – attending the first day’s ceremonies. Research scientists, specialists and leaders from Africa and other parts of the world have expressed the view that significant progress had been made over the past decade or so to combat and control the pandemic through anti-retroviral drugs. But they say a lot more still has to be done to drastically reduce infections. The discrimination against people with HIV-AIDs became a major issue on Tuesday. Subry Govender filed this report from the conference centre…… .

HIV-AIDS STILL A SERIOUS PROBLEM IN SOUTH AFRICA WITH NEARLY SEVEN MILLION AFFLICTED WITH THE DISEASE

(Mrs Cwengekile Myeni, manager of the Hillcrest Aids Centre Gogo group, Mrs Phindiwe Mashiloane, assistant manager, and Ms Rebekka Stredwick, Volunteer Gogo Group) For the second time in 16 years, South Africa will be hosting the International Aids Conference from July 18 to 22 to place the spotlight on one of the most-deadliest pandemics to afflict the world. More than 20 000 delegates from Africa and other parts of the world will descend on the coastal city of Durban to highlight the effects of the HIV-AIDs virus and to work together to combat the disease. Since the last conference in the city in 2 000, South Africa has made tremendous strides in curbing and controlling the disease through the introduction of anti-retroviral drugs and various educational and social programmes. Subry Govender travelled to a rural area regarded as the epicentre of Aids in the province of KwaZulu-Natal and compiled this radio feature on the situation in South Africa today to coincide with the International Aids conference.

(Samentha Ramdheen, the daughter of Nelson Padaychee, recently visited our home with her mother, brother, sister-in-law and their children. Samentha wanted to make contact with the Muniamma family after attending the funeral of Poobal Govender in Isipingo recently. Samentha attended the funeral with Nelson. It was really a wonderful gesture on the part of Samentha to make contact with us. She keeps in contact with us and wants to know more about her father's extended family.)

TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO - THE WEST INDIAN COUNTRY WHERE PEOPLE OF INDIAN ORIGIN MAKE UP A SIGNIFICANT PERCANTAGE OF THE TOTAL POPULATION. THEY WERE TAKEN TO WORK AS INDENTURED LABOURERS ON SUGAR PLANTATIONS

MAP OF TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO

TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO VETERAN JOURNALIST - PARAS RAMOUTAR BY SUBRY GOVENDER

(PARAS RAMOUTAR (EXTREME LEFT) WITH JOURNALISTS FROM OTHER PARTS OF THE WORLD IN FRONT OF THE TAJ MAHAL IN JANUARY 2009) During the recent visit of South Africa’s national cricket team to the West Indies – one would have noticed the number of Indian-origin spectators watching the matches along with their fellow black, white and mixed-race colleagues. The Indian-origin people are descendants of indentured labourers who were taken from various parts of India in the early 1800s to former colonies controlled by Britain, Holland and France. Some of the islands where Indian immigrants settled in large numbers are Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago and Suriname. In 2009 I had the opportunity of talking to journalists from these countries and Mauritius, Malaysia and Fiji about the lives of Indian-origin people. I was part of a group of 19 Indian-origin journalists who attended a Pravasi Bharati Divas conference in Chennai in 2009. I have already done radio documentaries on Guyana, Fiji and Malaysia, and Suriname and in this episode, I have a prepared a radio documentary on the island of Trinidad and Tobago, which is a former British colony. I spoke to Paras(Parasram)Ramoutar, an international journalist who writes and broadcasts extensively for radio, newspapers and television, in his home country, the Caribbean and worldwide. Mr Ramoutar is the Caribbean correspondent for the Indo Asian News Service(IANS), the Indiandiaspora.com, and India Empire.

(PARAS RAMOUTAR (BACK) WITH JOURNALISTS ANAND MALOO OF MAURITIUS AND SUBRY GOVENDER IN NEW DELHI IN 2009)

(PARAS RAMOUTAR AND OTHER JOURNALISTS FROM THE INDIAN DIASPORA IN 2009)

HIV-AIDs STILL A SERIOUS PANDEMIC IN SOUTH AFRICA

(Mrs Cwengekile Myeni, manager of the Hillcrest Aids Centre Gogo group, Mrs Phindiwe Mashiloane, assistant manager, and Ms Rebekka Stredwick, Volunteer Gogo Group)

(TEENAGERS ATTENDING AN EDUCATION PROGRAMME ON HIV-AIDs AT THE HILLCREST AIDS CENTRE, NEAR DURBAN, IN SOUTH AFRICA A FEW DAYS BEFORE THE START OF THE INTERNATIONAL AIDS CONFERENCE) INTRODUCTION: For the second time in 16 years, South Africa will be hosting the International Aids Conference from July 18 to 22 to place the spotlight on one of the most-deadliest pandemics to afflict the world. More than 20 000 delegates from Africa and other parts of the world will descend on the coastal city of Durban to highlight the effects of the HIV-AIDs virus and to work together to combat the disease. Since the last conference in the city in 2 000, South Africa has made tremendous strides in curbing and controlling the disease through the introduction of anti-retroviral drugs and various educational and social programmes. Subry Govender travelled to a rural area regarded as the epicentre of Aids in the province of KwaZulu-Natal and compiled this report on the situation in South Africa today to coincide with the International Aids conference.

(TEENAGERS ATTENDING AN HIV-AIDs EDUCATION PROGRAMME AT THE HILLCREST AIDS CENTRE) About 30km to the west of the ICC conference centre in Durban, where the International Aids Conference is going to take place between July 18 and 22, is the Hillcrest Aids Centre. This non-government organisation was started in a small building by the local Methodist Church 26 years ago at a time when little was known about the HIV-AIDs virus or its impact on the people. The religious Minister and his colleagues were concerned about the implications and immediately set about providing care, comfort and support for the people who were being affected by the disease. Over the years since 1990, the Hillcrest Aids Centre has developed into becoming a massive non-government organisation doing magnificent and magnanimous work in contributing to the welfare of the afflicted and providing educational, social and support programmes for the affected and the community at large. The organisation concentrates its humanirarian and prevention campaigns in a rural area known as the Valley of Thousand Hills, near where its offices are situated. Hundreds of thousands of the more than a million people who live in this district are understood to be affected by the HIV virus and tens of thousands of others are reported to have succumbed to the disease. The Valley of Thousands Hills is reported to be, not only the epicentre of the Aids pandemic in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, but also in the whole of South Africa. This, despite the wide-scale introduction of anti-retroviral drugs and education programmes such as condom use, circumcision and safe sex over the past decade or so. The Hillcrest Aids Centre is one of scores of non-government organisations and movements that operate alongside the South African Government in providing health care to the more than 6,8-million people who are afflicted with Aids in South Africa. I visited the area on Wednesday, July 6, about 12 days before the start of the Aids Conference, on a day when about 50 young people, both boys and girls, were participating in an awareness programme on HIV-AIDs. “What we are hoping to achieve is to have an HIV-free generation one day.”

(Mr Sibusiso Mthethwa – Education Manager at the Hillcrest Aids Centre - WITH THE FUND-RAISING MANAGER MS CLAIRE HODGKINSON) The Education Manager of the Hillcrest Aids Centre, Mr Sibusiso Mthethwa, told me the youth programme was aimed at empowering teenagers to become fully informed about the dangers of the HIV-AIDs virus. “We are actually educating young people,” he said, “on healthy lifestyle, positive lifestyle and HIV knowledge”. “It is very important and crucial that we educate and teach these young people about HIV-AIDs so that they will prevent the infection. What we are hoping to achieve is to have an HIV-free generation one day.” Mr Mthethwa said their educational programme also involved visiting schools and other institutions to make teenagers and the people at large about the dangers of “unsafe sex”. He said: “We also go out to schools where we teach young people in primary schools and high schools about HIV-AIDs, about how to prevent HIV-AIDs, how important it is to know your status. It is important and crucial that they know their status so that when they get older and when they get into relationships, they are able to say NO to unprotected sex.” GOGO OR GRANNY’S PROJECT

(Cwengekile Myeni, manager of the Gogo Project, Phindiwe Mashiloane, assistant manager, and Rebekka Stredwick, Volunteer) In addition to the education programme for teenagers, the Hillcrest Aids Centre, which is funded by well-wishers from countries as far afield as Germany and the United States, also operates, among other community work, a Gogo or Granny’s programme. This involves providing support and assistance to elderly women in the district who had been burdened to take care of their grand-children following the deaths of their own children through the AIDs pandemic. The assistant manager of the Gogo Project, Ms Phindiwe Mashiloane, said the situation was acute. She said: “The grannies are suffering a lot because they are now getting a pension which is very, very little. They can’t even take care of their grand-children. So what we are doing is, we are supporting the grannies to participate in various jobs to increase their income in their house-hold. We support them by telling them to do work such as hand work and the block-making – the projects that can support them.” She said the pandemic was increasing all the time because many of the people don’t want to change their behaviour. “Now they take for granted,” she said,”that there are ARVs and they can behave any how they like”. “Then those who have HIV say they don’t care and then just continue doing things without any concern for others. “We are now trying to change this type of behaviour.” Ms Mashiloane said one of the reasons for the “don’t care attitude” was that people were unemployed and found themselves to be caught up in poverty. “Even the youth, the out of school youth they learn and pass their matrics, others are graduates they don’t get work. This is the main, main, main problem that we have in our communities,” she said.

(Cwengekile Myeni, manager of the Gogo Project, Phindiwe Mashiloane, assistant manager, and Rebekka Stredwick, Volunteer) The manager of the Gogo Project, Ms Cwengekile Myeni, said despite the work they were undertaking in the community, they found it discouraging that people were still being infected by the HIV-AIDs virus. “It’s really, really discouraging that people are still getting infected but then we don’t need to lose hope. We still need to work hard and educate people, especially women. I think women have to be taught and empowered that this is their body and they need to take of their bodies.”

(Ms Claire Hodgkinson, Fund-Raising and Marketing Manager, WITH COLLEAGUES MS PAMELA MTSHALI AND MS THANDEKA ZUNGU) MANY STRIDES HAVE BEEN MADE BUT THE SITUATION TODAY IS STILL EXTREMELY SERIOUS The Fund-Raising and Marketing Manager of the Hillcrest Aids Centre is Ms Claire Hodgkinson. She told me that there had been definite strides in controlling the effects of the pandemic through a number of health, educational and social programmes. But the situation today was still serious in their region. “The situation today is still extremely serious, particularly where we work here in the Valley of a Thousand Hills, which is a very rural and is rife with poverty and unemployment. It is considered as one of the epicentres of the HIV-AIDs pandemic here in South Africa. It is believed that in some of these communities in the Valley infection rate is as high as 40 to 60 percent, which is staggering. There is hardly any one here in our rural areas that don’t know any one that has been impacted by the disease.” WORK THEY DO Ms Hodgkinson said their work involved providing “unconditional love and hope to those impacted by HIV-AIDs”. “Essentially we take a very holistic approach in treating those people affected by HIV-AIDs. So we provide care and treatment to those who are infected and we provide counselling and support to their families, particularly those who are most vulnerable – the children and grand-mothers. We also look at empowering them financially through income-generating and community outreach and upliftment programmes.” 24 – BED RESPITE UNIT FOR THE SERIOUSLY-ILL The Hillcrest Aids Centre also operated a medical care for seriously-ill patients. “We currently have a 24 bed respite unit here at our centre,” she said, “and we currently have 22 patients in our unit”. “Twenty one of them have TB in addition to being HIV positive and we have one gentleman with MDR TB as well. Because of this we have very strict protocol in terms of access to our units and our team is specifically trained to look after those patients.” She added: “I think definitely we are making great strides now, especially with the accessibility of ARV medication throughout South Africa. Here at the Hillcrest Aids Centre alone we have seen amazing results in terms of our respite units, we get about 200 patients a year who come to our respite units. And currently over 70 percent of them are getting well enough to return home to their families through the care, treatment and initiation on to the ARVs that they are able to get here at our centre.”

(Ms Claire Hodgkinson, Fund-Raising and Marketing Manager, WITH COLLEAGUES MS PAMELA MTSHALI AND MS THANDEKA ZUNGU) URGENT DRAMATIC BEHAVIOURAL CHANGES NEEDED Ms Hodgekinson said there must be dramatic behavioural changes in people for the HIV-AIDs virus to be fully overcome. “It’s going to take some time to completely eradicate the disease because it is a social disease,” she said. “It’s a very complex disease. It touches on many different aspects of our lives. It’s not just a medical issue. When you are talking about very personal issues such as sex and inter-personal relationships and changing people’s attitudes and behaviour, it’s challenging, it’s really, really challenging. “And that’s why it’s important that we continue with our prevention and education programmes, especially with the younger generation. The earlier that we can teach people about positive lifestyles and good behaviour and safe behaviour, the better we will be.”

(Professor Jerry Coovadia, Director of the Maternal, Adolscent and Child Health - MATCH) One of the senior HIV-AIDs research specialists in South Africa is Professor Jerry Coovadia, the Director of the Maternal, Adolescent and Child Health (or MATCH) – attached to the School of Public Health at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. He was previously attached to the Medical School at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Professor Coovadia was the Chairperson of the Aids Conference that was held in Durban in 2 000. During the forthcoming conference, he will be delivering a number of papers on the treatment and prevention of the pandemic. SOUTH AFRICA HAS MADE ENORMOUS PROGRESS Professor Coovadia told me that South Africa has made enormous progress in curbing and providing treatment to affected people. For instance South Africa has the largest anti-retroviral programme in the world with more than three million people on ARV treatment. But, he said, it was going to take some time in completely eradicating the disease. “I think we have gone a long way,” he said. “I mean we have made enormous progress globally and in South Africa, so there’s no doubt about that and we will continue to make progress. “To really eradicate it is going to be a long job but it’s not impossible given the advances in medicine, given the advances in what we know about genes and how genes can affect it, given our advances in the best forms of treatment and very important too is prevention – circumcision prevents, condoms prevents, change in sexual behaviour, monogamy prevents and so on. So I think it is possible but it is going to take a long time.” Although more than a million people had succumbed to the HIV virus since the pandemic broke out in the 1980s, the death rate today had been drastically reduced because of the various treatment and prevention programmes that are being carried out. MOTHER-TO-CHILD INFECTION HAS DROPPED DRAMATICALLY He was most impressed with the success they had achieved in bringing down the mother-to-child infection rate. “The transmission rate used to be from the late 1980s to the 1990s for every 100 HIV positive women about 30 to 32 of the babies were infected. The figure now is phenomenally low, it’s under two percent - two out of every 100 women. So for every 100 HIV positive women under two babies are infected, which is like almost eliminating the disease.” DESPITE THE SUCCESSES HIV-AIDS WAS STILL SEVERE IN SOUTH AFRICA Professor Coovadia said the situation of the HIV-AIDs pandemic was still quite severe in South Africa. “It’s still quite severe. If you take it globally, we probably still have the worst epidemic rate. Not only is the country most seriously affected than anywhere else in the world, it so happens that KwaZulu-Natal is the most seriously affected province for very many reasons. Those are really historical reasons about employment, migration of workers in mines and so on and the dislocation of established families. “As I said we have the biggest epidemic in the world, it’s in excess of six million. But because of the reasonably good infrastructure we had, I think it has gone down now, in the public sector we have been able to win many battles against HIV-AIDs. The biggest battles is to keep down the numbers and keep down the deaths and we have succeeded quite substantially in that way.” The International Aids Conference is going to attract more than 20 000 people from the rest of the African continent and other parts of the world. It’s hoped that their participation will contribute to the control and complete eradication of one of the most-deadliest diseases in more than a century.

INDIAN PRIME MINISTER ACKNOWLEDGES VETERAN STRUGGLE STALWARTS AND INDENTURED INDIAN LABOURERS

(PRIME MINISTER NARENDRA MODI OF INDIA HOLDING THE HANDS OF VETERAN FREEDOM FIGHTERS, KAY MOONSAMY(LEFT) AND SWAMINATHAN GOUNDEN (RIGHT). ON THE RIGHT IS THE PREMIER OF THE PROVINCE, MR WILLIS MCHUNCU) By Subry Govender Indian Prime Minister, Mr Narendra Modi, greeted and paid tribute to two veteran struggle stalwarts who attended a reception organised in his honour at the Durban City Hall on the afternoon of Saturday, July 9.

(PRIME MINISTER MODI TALKING TO MR KAY MOONSAMY) Mr Modi walked up to 90-year-old Kay Moonsamy and 89-year-old Swaminathan Gounden and shook their hands at the end of the function organised by the Ethekwini Municipality.

(PRIME MINISTER MODI TALKING TO SWAMINATHAN GOUNDEN) Moonsamy and Gounden were earlier introduced by the programme director, Mr Ravi Pillay, MEC, as two freedom fighters who participated in the Passive Resistance Campaign in 1946 while they were still in their early teens. The two veterans later joined the Natal Indian Congress(NIC), the South African Communist Party(SACP), the ANC, and other organisations that fought for the non-racial democracy and freedom that South Africans enjoy today. For their efforts, they were among the thousands of activists who were banned, detained, house-arrested, jailed and forced into exile by the former apartheid regime.

(PRIME MINISTER MODI WITH PREMIER WILLIS MCHUNU AND MR KAY MOONSAMY AND SWAMINATHAN GOUNDEN) Mr Modi had also on Friday acknowledged the contributions of Mr Ahmed Kathrada and other freedom fighters at a function at the Nelson Mandela Foundation in Johannesburg. Before his address to the invited guests at the Durban City Hall, Mr Modi visited the Pietermaritzburg Railway Station where Mahatma Gandhi was thrown of a train for sitting in a “whites-only” coach. He also visited the Mahatma Gandhi Phoenix Settlement in Inanda, north of Durban.

(MR KAY MOONSAMY AND MR SWAMINATHAN GOUNDEN AFTER PRIME MINISTER MODI GREETED AND ACKNOWLEDGED THEM) During his address to the people at the City Hall, he surprised most of those present by offering the greeting of not only “Namasthe”, but also “Vanakkam” and “Sanibonani”. He also recognised and acknowledged the first Indians who were brought to work as indentured labourers or “slaves” on the sugar plantations of the then Natal Colony in 1860. “It was here in 1860 that the first Indians landed in South Africa. On 16th November 1860 the ship Truro touched the shores of KwaZulu-Natal with 342 Indians. I learnt that the first people to get down the ship were Ngaru, his wife and two small daughters. Today, more than 150 years later, Durban has the largest concentration of people of Indian origin outside India. “Their suffering under apartheid and colonial rule is well known. But against all odds they preserved their culture and values. And today they are very successful and proud citizens of this great country.”

(SOME OF THE INVITED GUESTS)

(MORE GUESTS AT THE FUNCTION) Modi said they were contributing to their country in the fields education, scientific research, judiciary and the economy. . They did not live for themselves only but contributed enormously to the welfare of the poor and under-privileged. This reference to the indentured Indians came as a surprise to many people because the impression was created that Modi or the Indian Government did not recognise or care about those who left their motherland to start a new life in the then Natal Colony as indentured labourers. For instance no efforts were made for Modi to visit one of the sugar estates where the indentured labourers had started their new lives in South Africa.

(GUESTS WELCOMING PRIME MINISTER MODI BY TAKING PICTURES)

(Premier of KwaZulu-Natal Province, Mr Willis Mchunu, standing next to Swaminathan Gounden and Prime Minister Modi) Earlier, the Premier of the KZN province, Mr Willis Mchunu, in his address welcoming Modi to KwaZulu-Natal, paid tribute to the people of Indian origin for their enormous contributions to the development of KwaZulu-Natal and South Africa as a whole. He said the people of Indian descent had made enormous contributions to the social, political, economic, educational and other fields of development. He said the people of Indian origin “are part of all of us and this country belongs to them”. He said he hoped when Modi returned to India he would have returned with very good memories of the country.

(KING GOODWILL ZWELITHINI PRESENTING A GIFT TO INDIAN PRIME MINISTER, NARENDRA MODI) King Goodwill Zwelithini, who also welcomed Modi to the province, encouraged the Indian Prime Minister to assist in the further development of the province, especially in the fields of agriculture and over-coming the HIV-AIDs pandemic. As a final gesture, the King presented Modi with a gift.

(Some of the invited guests lining up and security checked before being allowed into the Durban City Hall)