Issued by: Ministry of Education
28 November 2001
Deputy Minister,
DG,
DDGs, and all members of staff.
Dumelang,
Sanibonani,
Goeie more,
Good morning
It is not very often that I get to speak to you, members of staff, our unsung and often unseen heroes, the people who make it possible for the Department to be carrying out it's mandate and who make us all, myself, the Deputy Minister, senior staff members, look good in the eyes of the public. For this reason, I feel particularly pleased and grateful for this opportunity.
It is fitting for us to be gathered in this hall today to observe World AIDS Day, 2001. For the last two years we have developed, started implementing and are continually refining our strategy of responding to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. We continue to demonstrate that to us as a Department, World AIDS Day is not a single day, but a significant part of a much larger effort of responding to HIV/AIDS. First, we have strengthened our school based HIV/AIDS programme by ensuring that teachers are trained to teach Sexuality Education and HIV/AIDS programmes, we have ensured the implementation of peer education and we are using all avenues at our disposal, such as is evidenced by our partnership with Love Life and USSASA, to include Sexuality Education and positive lifestyles into sports.
Secondly, we have broadened our strategy to recognise that HIV/AIDS affects the education system beyond the learners, and that our response needs to encompass the entire education system. We therefore have started implementing broad based multisectoral HIV/AIDS programmes in our Higher Education Institutions, in Early Childhood Education, as well as in Inclusive Education focusing on learners with special needs, including orphans.
Third and most importantly, we are looking inside. We have started putting significant work into caring for ourselves, as a system of education and as people within this system. Our goals as reflected in our mission statement are: Access; Equity; Redress; Quality; Efficiency; and Democracy. HIV/AIDS threatens each of these goals in a significant way. We have started to investigate and put measures in place to ensure that the system of education will continue to meet these goals, even in the face of HIV/AIDS. Many of you may have heard or read of the reports of illness among our teachers and the increase in the number of orphans. We cannot turn a blind eye to all these reports and we have already started implementing measures in response to them.
As for caring for ourselves, as people working within the education system, we are finalising the approval and printing of a workplace policy and programme by all concerned, including the unions. This policy will outline the position of the Department in relation to increasing the understanding of HIV/AIDS in the workplace and in creating an enabling and supportive environment for those of us who are infected and all of us who are affected by this epidemic. Both the policy and programme have been developed to be adaptable and serve as guidelines, for use by provinces and schools as workplaces for our teachers. The programme will focus on on-going formal and informal education on HIV/AIDS to you our staff, on universal precautions, including access to condoms, and on care and support services provided to our staff.
For now, the care and support component, will mainly consist of a counselling service and lifestyle workshops led by our workplace programme assistant, Ms Mando Maako, who has been introduced to you today and spoke so passionately to us. The service is available now and I urge you to use the services that we have put together for the benefit of all of us. Let us feel free to talk about this, approach Ms Maako and Ms Khoza or Kgobati and help us break the silence around this issue. Like most things in life, talking does help. At this point I want to borrow from a Setswana idiom that says "Ngwana o o sa lleng o swela tharing", literally translated to mean "a child who does not cry, dies in the cradle". Talking demystifies the disease, removes the stress associated with keeping a secret and has an all-round liberating effect because as you open up, support becomes accessible and you are freed to get on with important matters of your life.
The challenge therefore, is for all of us to open up, to realise that we are all living with HIV/AIDS. While some of us have the virus living in their bloodstream, all of us either live with, work with or know somebody infected by the virus. Many of these people were infected in the process of doing things most of us do on a regular basis. They are normal people like you and me. Mando and Musa are real and laudable examples, driving this message home. So, as I deliver this message to you on World AIDS Day 2001, let us be reminded to intensify our efforts in memory of those who have died and in appreciation of the lives we still have. Let us celebrate the spirited acts of Musa and Mando and many others. It is fitting for us to do this on this day, and on the many days to come. I reassure you of my commitment to leading an on-going response to this epidemic throughout this coming year, and to ensuring the provision of a working environment that is educational, supportive and non-discriminatory to all our employees. Let me also reiterate my conviction that in order for us to succeed in turning the tide of this epidemic we have to be reminded of the power of the collective. We are all part of communities and unless we work together with our communities to ensure a sustained mobilisation against behaviours and practices that perpetuate the HIV/AIDS epidemic, we will not succeed. We have to be part of a much larger effort of mobilising our communities to own and support the messages of non-violence of our women and children, messages of "no sexual relations between older men, teachers and younger girls, as well as messages of " real men do not rape or have multiple sex partners". All these depend on every single one of us.
We must also work very hard to dispel some of the horrendous and badly misinformed beliefs about HIV/AIDS such as the idea that having sex with a virgin (often a young girl) will cure a man of the disease. This is simply not true and simply serves to deepen the crisis in which we find ourselves. We must work hard to educate our people about the real facts of the disease. Then at least we have a fighting chance of combating the disease and its spread.
I ask you therefore to take one small step against this epidemic, start by doing all that is necessary to stay negative and protecting yourself, then move on to talking about it. Let us not stand by and watch as the disease ravages us! Let us choose to use the power we have over it! Let's show that we care enough to act. We will overcome if we commit ourselves to!
In conclusion, the year is almost over and I want to end by wishing you all a happy, productive fulfilling new year. You have worked hard this year; we have achieved so much and I am proud of all of you and the excellent work you do. Many of you give beyond the call of duty and on behalf of the Deputy Minister and myself, I wish you the very best for this festive season.
Ke a leboga, Thank you.