Date: 09/09/2004
Source: North West Provincial Government
Title: E Molewa: Schools AIDS event
KEYNOTE ADDRESS BY THE PREMIER OF THE NORTH WEST, MS EDNA MOLEWA, ON THE OCCASION OF THE SCHOOLS AIDS EVENT, Mafikeng, 9 September 2004
Programme Director,
MEC for Education, Rev OJ Tselapedi,
Senior Managers of the provincial government,
Teachers,
School children,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen
I am honoured to have been invited to deliver this keynote address at this important gathering. In particular, I am pleased to have been given an opportunity to speak directly to our school children about a pandemic that threatens to ravage the developing world.
Programme Director, AIDS continues to be one of the major threats facing our province, country and continent. Indeed, in the absence of a cure or vaccine for HIV and AIDS, prevention and care remains our only effective weapons to ward off this deadly enemy.
In the North West Province, like in the rest of South Africa, the fight against HIV and AIDS is approached with the seriousness it deserves. Our collective efforts to combat the scourge of HIV and AIDS, and in particular, the involvement of our schools, continue to make an immeasurable impact.
I am confident that a programme that takes the fight against HIV and AIDS to the schoolyards will decisively and fundamentally shift the balance of power in our favour as we battle to defeat this scourge.
As we deal with this challenge of unparalleled proportions, we need to keep reminding ourselves of the words of President Mbeki on the occasion of the launch of the Partnership Against AIDS in October 1998. He challenged our attitudes and reminded all of us that AIDS is not someone else's problem. It is my problem. It is your problem. Therefore, our individual and collective actions count.
Youths are the hardest hit by this epidemic. The impact of HIV/AIDS on youths is particularly devastating. This reality underlines the crucial role that schools should play in the fight against this pandemic. In combating HIV infection, the crucial responsibility is to teach young people how to avoid infection or transmitting it to others.
Schools are important places where young people can be educated about HIV and AIDS and how to halt its further spread. Schools must continue to play their crucial roles of reinforcing positive health behaviour and to help modify the behaviour that puts young people at risk.
South Africa is beginning to witness deaths of adults in their thirties and forties who were infected when they were young. The saddest observation is that some young people are not responding to our messages and the evidence of the seriousness of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Unless we collectively work towards stemming the tide, within the next few years, AIDS will wreak havoc with the lives of many South Africans. This will require intensified care and support for those infected and affected. HIV/AIDS-related illnesses add to the burden on health resources due to an increased number of hospitalisation and the provision of medicine.
Already, the public health system is feeling the pressure and finding it difficult to cope with the strain arising from the need to deal with HIV and AIDS. Indeed, in the next few years, South Africa may not be able to cope with the devastating effects of HIV/AIDS as the trend continues unabated.
This demands that all of us, collectively and individually, must redouble our efforts to help combat the spread of the AIDS epidemic. This, we must do because the problem of AIDS is not the problem of the Department of Health alone. It is not the problem of government alone. It is our problem.
The story of HIV and AIDS should not always be a story of doom, pain and gloom.
Many individuals, families, communities, nations and people living with AIDS have turned what appears to be a death sentence to a life of hope. AIDS provides humanity with an opportunity to show compassion to those who are suffering. It is also an opportunity to restore our common humanity and to demonstrate the unbreakable spirit of the will to live.
The critical challenge facing all South Africans is to help strengthen the public sector's capacity to respond appropriately and adequately to the health needs of young people. Amongst other things, we need to empower communities and young people to understand this epidemic so that they can engage in home-based care programme.
People who are living with HIV and AIDS need support, acceptance, care and love more than any other thing. This is the best medicine we can give to HIV-positive people and those who are already sick with AIDS.
A key element of our programme must be to escalate our prevention efforts. There are many instances where the rate of infection is declining or stabilising. These gains are being made in the absence of a cure for HIV infection. What this says to us is that our behaviour is still the best weapon against HIV.
Our prevention efforts must focus particularly on the youth and include the prioritisation of life-skills programmes in our schools as a compulsory part of the curriculum. Although school children, like the rest of the youth, may be highly susceptible to sexually transmitted infections, as a group, they offer a unique opportunity in which HIV/AIDS prevention and education can be provided to a large captive audience in a disciplined and highly organised setting.
Schools are also ideal places for children to be taught to embrace and promote acceptance of people living with HIV/AIDS. As leaders of tomorrow, school children must be empowered with information to enable them to lead productive lives and to take their rightful places in future. Interventions in schools are some of the most important strategies in the fight against the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Life skills programs and sexuality education are a critical component of HIV/AIDS prevention.
Programme Director, it is common knowledge that many young people do not have the right information on sexuality, sexually transmitted diseases, the consequences of sex and HIV/AIDS. They either get half-baked information from magazines or friends, who in turn are also misinformed. They therefore need to be informed by well-informed people.
It is for this reason that the provincial government has established youth health centres in our regions. Many health facilities are not youth-friendly. Young people continue to encounter too many obstacles as they seek information to help them cope with their sexuality, enhance their reproductive health and protect themselves against HIV and teenage pregnancy.
Failure to prioritise the youth and their specific realities in the fight against HIV and AIDS is a recipe for dismal failure. In the North West, we have established youth health centres in the following areas; Vryburg, Moretele, Mokwesheng (Moses Kotane), Klerksdorp, Mafikeng, Ventersdorp, Mabopane and Lichtenburg. Tomorrow, we will be launching another Youth Centre in Wolmaranstad. This will be followed by Taung on 30 September 2004.
We are pursuing the path of youth health centres because of our conviction that programmes that focus specifically on young people will help us win the war against HIV/AIDS. Making sexual health services more accessible and more user-friendly to youths is part of the long-term strategy to prevent HIV/AIDS.
These centres are expected to provide young people with accurate and youth-friendly information about the pandemic and sexuality, to enable them to contribute towards the struggle against HIV/AIDS. I challenge all school children to ensure that they are adequately informed about HIV and AIDS so that they can reduce the risk to themselves and those close to them. The latest statistics give us hope and reason to be optimistic. We see a downward trend of HIV infections among young people, in particular, the under-24 age group. (The 2001 figure for the under-20 age group was 12%; for 20 -24-age group the figure was 29%. For 2002, the figure for under-20 was 11.5%; for 20-24 age group, the figure was 26.3%). Based on these figures, we can boldly claim that our awareness and prevention campaigns amongst young people are bearing fruit. Our challenge is to consolidate and continue strengthening our programmes.
I urge all young people and school children to practice safer sex by abstaining from sex until they are old and matured enough to understand the full implications of sex. When you are older and more responsible, I urge you to remain faithful to your partners and to always use a condom whenever there is a possibility of an unwanted pregnancy or of being infected with HIV and other sexually transmitted infections.
I thank you
Issued by: Office of the Premier, North West Provincial Government
9 September 2004
Source: North West Provincial Government
Title: E Molewa: Schools AIDS event
KEYNOTE ADDRESS BY THE PREMIER OF THE NORTH WEST, MS EDNA MOLEWA, ON THE OCCASION OF THE SCHOOLS AIDS EVENT, Mafikeng, 9 September 2004
Programme Director,
MEC for Education, Rev OJ Tselapedi,
Senior Managers of the provincial government,
Teachers,
School children,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen
I am honoured to have been invited to deliver this keynote address at this important gathering. In particular, I am pleased to have been given an opportunity to speak directly to our school children about a pandemic that threatens to ravage the developing world.
Programme Director, AIDS continues to be one of the major threats facing our province, country and continent. Indeed, in the absence of a cure or vaccine for HIV and AIDS, prevention and care remains our only effective weapons to ward off this deadly enemy.
In the North West Province, like in the rest of South Africa, the fight against HIV and AIDS is approached with the seriousness it deserves. Our collective efforts to combat the scourge of HIV and AIDS, and in particular, the involvement of our schools, continue to make an immeasurable impact.
I am confident that a programme that takes the fight against HIV and AIDS to the schoolyards will decisively and fundamentally shift the balance of power in our favour as we battle to defeat this scourge.
As we deal with this challenge of unparalleled proportions, we need to keep reminding ourselves of the words of President Mbeki on the occasion of the launch of the Partnership Against AIDS in October 1998. He challenged our attitudes and reminded all of us that AIDS is not someone else's problem. It is my problem. It is your problem. Therefore, our individual and collective actions count.
Youths are the hardest hit by this epidemic. The impact of HIV/AIDS on youths is particularly devastating. This reality underlines the crucial role that schools should play in the fight against this pandemic. In combating HIV infection, the crucial responsibility is to teach young people how to avoid infection or transmitting it to others.
Schools are important places where young people can be educated about HIV and AIDS and how to halt its further spread. Schools must continue to play their crucial roles of reinforcing positive health behaviour and to help modify the behaviour that puts young people at risk.
South Africa is beginning to witness deaths of adults in their thirties and forties who were infected when they were young. The saddest observation is that some young people are not responding to our messages and the evidence of the seriousness of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Unless we collectively work towards stemming the tide, within the next few years, AIDS will wreak havoc with the lives of many South Africans. This will require intensified care and support for those infected and affected. HIV/AIDS-related illnesses add to the burden on health resources due to an increased number of hospitalisation and the provision of medicine.
Already, the public health system is feeling the pressure and finding it difficult to cope with the strain arising from the need to deal with HIV and AIDS. Indeed, in the next few years, South Africa may not be able to cope with the devastating effects of HIV/AIDS as the trend continues unabated.
This demands that all of us, collectively and individually, must redouble our efforts to help combat the spread of the AIDS epidemic. This, we must do because the problem of AIDS is not the problem of the Department of Health alone. It is not the problem of government alone. It is our problem.
The story of HIV and AIDS should not always be a story of doom, pain and gloom.
Many individuals, families, communities, nations and people living with AIDS have turned what appears to be a death sentence to a life of hope. AIDS provides humanity with an opportunity to show compassion to those who are suffering. It is also an opportunity to restore our common humanity and to demonstrate the unbreakable spirit of the will to live.
The critical challenge facing all South Africans is to help strengthen the public sector's capacity to respond appropriately and adequately to the health needs of young people. Amongst other things, we need to empower communities and young people to understand this epidemic so that they can engage in home-based care programme.
People who are living with HIV and AIDS need support, acceptance, care and love more than any other thing. This is the best medicine we can give to HIV-positive people and those who are already sick with AIDS.
A key element of our programme must be to escalate our prevention efforts. There are many instances where the rate of infection is declining or stabilising. These gains are being made in the absence of a cure for HIV infection. What this says to us is that our behaviour is still the best weapon against HIV.
Our prevention efforts must focus particularly on the youth and include the prioritisation of life-skills programmes in our schools as a compulsory part of the curriculum. Although school children, like the rest of the youth, may be highly susceptible to sexually transmitted infections, as a group, they offer a unique opportunity in which HIV/AIDS prevention and education can be provided to a large captive audience in a disciplined and highly organised setting.
Schools are also ideal places for children to be taught to embrace and promote acceptance of people living with HIV/AIDS. As leaders of tomorrow, school children must be empowered with information to enable them to lead productive lives and to take their rightful places in future. Interventions in schools are some of the most important strategies in the fight against the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Life skills programs and sexuality education are a critical component of HIV/AIDS prevention.
Programme Director, it is common knowledge that many young people do not have the right information on sexuality, sexually transmitted diseases, the consequences of sex and HIV/AIDS. They either get half-baked information from magazines or friends, who in turn are also misinformed. They therefore need to be informed by well-informed people.
It is for this reason that the provincial government has established youth health centres in our regions. Many health facilities are not youth-friendly. Young people continue to encounter too many obstacles as they seek information to help them cope with their sexuality, enhance their reproductive health and protect themselves against HIV and teenage pregnancy.
Failure to prioritise the youth and their specific realities in the fight against HIV and AIDS is a recipe for dismal failure. In the North West, we have established youth health centres in the following areas; Vryburg, Moretele, Mokwesheng (Moses Kotane), Klerksdorp, Mafikeng, Ventersdorp, Mabopane and Lichtenburg. Tomorrow, we will be launching another Youth Centre in Wolmaranstad. This will be followed by Taung on 30 September 2004.
We are pursuing the path of youth health centres because of our conviction that programmes that focus specifically on young people will help us win the war against HIV/AIDS. Making sexual health services more accessible and more user-friendly to youths is part of the long-term strategy to prevent HIV/AIDS.
These centres are expected to provide young people with accurate and youth-friendly information about the pandemic and sexuality, to enable them to contribute towards the struggle against HIV/AIDS. I challenge all school children to ensure that they are adequately informed about HIV and AIDS so that they can reduce the risk to themselves and those close to them. The latest statistics give us hope and reason to be optimistic. We see a downward trend of HIV infections among young people, in particular, the under-24 age group. (The 2001 figure for the under-20 age group was 12%; for 20 -24-age group the figure was 29%. For 2002, the figure for under-20 was 11.5%; for 20-24 age group, the figure was 26.3%). Based on these figures, we can boldly claim that our awareness and prevention campaigns amongst young people are bearing fruit. Our challenge is to consolidate and continue strengthening our programmes.
I urge all young people and school children to practice safer sex by abstaining from sex until they are old and matured enough to understand the full implications of sex. When you are older and more responsible, I urge you to remain faithful to your partners and to always use a condom whenever there is a possibility of an unwanted pregnancy or of being infected with HIV and other sexually transmitted infections.
I thank you
Issued by: Office of the Premier, North West Provincial Government
9 September 2004
Advertisement
EMAIL THIS ARTICLE SAVE THIS ARTICLE FEEDBACK
To subscribe email subscriptions@creamermedia.co.za or click here
To advertise email advertising@creamermedia.co.za or click here
