Issued by: Department of Health
27 November 1997
In line with the impetus to move South Africans beyond mere Aids awareness to a stage where individuals and communities actively take part in the fight against the spread of the epidemic, the 1997 World Aids Day commemorations will take a different form from its predecessors.
Traditionally the World Aids Day is celebrated for one day on December 1. But this years' celebrations will mark the day as the start of an awareness campaign that will make every day of 1998 a World Aids Day. It will also launch campaigns and projects to be sustained throughout the year.
Clinics, health promotion units and supermarkets, will play their role towards raising Aids awareness around World Aids Day by communicating Aids facts to patients attending clinics during the week of World Aids Day.
Once caunched, it is hoped that the government, NGOs, the media, communities - in fact all South Africans - will embrace the campaigns and projects by promoting their aims and objectives, and developing actions and responses to meet them throughout the year.
"We approach the day itself as a resource - a catalyst - to maximise the South African response to the AIDS epidemic. Through a process of consultation and evaluation of successful campaigns, the 1997 World AIDS Day strategies should reinforce the urgency for Government and other stakeholder to combine resources in a coordinated manner to stem the increasing tide of HIV prevalence in the countr." Ms Rose Smart, the Director of the National HIV/AIDS and STDs Programme said.
"The Beyond Awareness' campaign which was launched this week and where the new Aids logo was unveiled, will create the necessary synergy between national and provincial campaigns so that we are all aligned to one common purpose" she said.
A poster calender, reflecting the theme "Our children living in a world with Aids", has been produced nationally and distributed to provinces for further distribution. The poster calender graphically depicts the situation children will face as they grow up in a world with Aids.
Provinces have been encouraged to produce provincial Aids quilts, which in time will then be joined together to form a national Aids guilt. Internationally, the fashioning of an Aids quilt has served as a symbol of a nation rallying together in response to Aids. For this project - which some provinces will be launching on World Aids Day - the support of schools, churches, industry, families should be enlisted. The quilt project is aimed at facilitating a meaningful contribution towards the cherished dream of an expanded South African response to and a communal ownership of the fight against Aids.
Provinces such as KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape have already started, and intend building further on the success of the projects in their provinces. The national quilt idea, a project to be sustained throughout 1998, has also been incorporated in the poster calender as a motif.
Aids awareness materials (posters, pamphlets, etc) have been produced and have, together with condoms, been distributed to provinces for further distribution to regions and districts.
To support provincial campaigns, guidelines or suggestions of activities for World AIDS Day have been produced and distributed for possible implementation by provinces. To increase an intersectoral approach and the mobilisation of communities outside the HIV/AIDS field, provinces have been encouraged to investigate events happing around World Aids Day (for example soccer, cricket, etc) and to mobilise participants in such events to wear red ribbons.