Tinashe works at the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights as Coordinator for their HIV and AIDS Human Rights and Law Project.

This project provides free legal aid for people living with HIV, runs human rights and advocacy training courses for around 80 HIV-positive people a month, and organises community AIDS forums to develop human rights literacy.

Tinashe was interested in NAM’s information booklets as the project is planning to develop its services to include treatments literacy work. He came to the South African AIDS Conference for ‘the networking and information-sharing opportunities it offers, plus also the chance to learn about the work being done by other organistions’.

Dikeledi’s work covers South Africa, Mozambique, Rwanda and Sudan, and involves water and sanitation, agriculture and feeding programmes. A current focus is to develop nutrition approaches in response to specific opportunistic infections that commonly affect people with HIV.

Dikeledi receives NAM’s email bulletin, HIV & AIDS Treatment in Practice  and uses aidsmap.com on a regular basis. She shares the information with colleagues and says,

'Not a day goes by when I don’t refer to something by NAM. Your work is hugely supportive to me, I share your resources with colleagues, and print them out to support my work in the community.’

Margaret works as a social worker at a medium and maximum security correction facility for 2300 juveniles. She is also the HIV/AIDS activities area co-ordinator for Pretoria correctional facilities.

Margaret’s work involves providing pre- and post-test counselling to the juveniles and their families, as well as health and HIV information. She was especially interested in NAM’s adherence booklet, as this is an issue she faces in her work that requires ‘particular encouragement and support’.

She also organises activities that bring information on HIV into the correctional facility environment, including talks and workshops, and that commemorate national and international HIV/AIDS dates and events, such as World AIDS Day.

Michael works with over 2000 homes in Newcastle. Clients are referred to Zanethemba via hospitals and clinics, and they have outreach volunteers who work in the community to identify potential clients.

The work of the organisation involves supporting families who are caring for orphans including providing donations of clothes and food, monitoring the taking of medicines, advising on adherence, and providing education on nutrition and how to physically care for the children. Michael and his team also work to ensure the children are referred back into the clinic or hospital if they become ill.

Willy and Likomo provide HIV training within the South African Military Service for doctors, pharmacists, social workers, dieticians and psychologists. The training is focused on supporting the roll-out and delivery of antiretroviral programmes, and covers HIV treatment, side-effects, medical monitoring and nutrition. They also work with patients to provide health education support.

Willy and Likomo came to the South African AIDS Conference to share knowledge and experience with other delegates, to explore how they can improve their training, and to develop their knowledge of clinical skills. Two years ago their manager, Igram, visited NAM’s stand at the 2007 conference and gave valuable feedback that helped us develop our free email bulletin HIV & AIDS Treatment in Practice.

Kay and Nomlha work for Right to Care, an organisation that works with employers to develop programmes ensuring the optimum management and prevention of HIV within their individual company environments.

They are attending the conference to network with other agencies and learn about different approaches and experiences.

Kay is passionate about working for Right to Care, and believes they are the ‘biggest and best’ NGO working on ARV roll-out in South Africa today.

Isaac’s job involves training doctors, nurses and people living with HIV giving clear information about HIV and how it affects people.  He visited the stand at the conference as he was interested in one of our new patient materials - The Basics, CD4 and Viral load.

This leaflet uses diagrams to explain the replication of viral load in the blood. Isaac uses a similar physical approach in his training. He uses a glass full of clear water and then adds a drop of juice so the water starts to get cloudy, the more juice added, the less clear the water becomes. 

This visual presentation helps him explain the complexities of viral replication and helps him get key messages across about keeping HIV under control (clear water) by taking medication. His training also includes diagrams which help explain onward transmission.

To find out more about Isaac's work email him at ngomanei@mtwloaded.co.za.

Frayne and Glenrose work for Enhancing Childrens’ HIV & AIDS Outcomes (ECHO).

Dedicated to ARV treatment programmes for children, the organisation has a hollistic approach with multi-disciplinary teams who support all aspects of living with HIV. They have come to the conference to promote the organisation and the various projects which include community outreach and pysho-social support.

Their mobile clinic support teams, working through three tertiary hospitals in Gauteng and three district hospitals and their numerous clinics in the North West, help provide capacity building and skills development. 

Glenrose is presenting a paper on sharing best practice in Preventing Mother to Child Transmission in the North West Province.  Under the direction of Dr Ashref Coovadia, convenor of the technical task team for treatment care and support they are making an important impact on the lives of children with HIV and those working to support them.

Alta came to the NAM stand and was interested in the Caring for the Caregivers newsletter. Her own research features prominently in this series of articles, exploring the specific challenges faced by care workers in the face of HIV and TB.  She runs HIV Counselling courses for  UNISA. 

Her research helps highlight the challenges faced by an important but often overlooked group of people who are integral to the day-to-day management of HIV.

Alta finds conferences like this vital in helping establish what has been done, and where we go from here. Identifying gaps is an important part in shaping new research projects.

You can read some of Alta’s research in NAM’s Caring for the Caregivers, a series of articles taken from the free email bulletin HIV & AIDS Treatment in Practice.

Joyce, Monica and Deo’s work involves training healthcare workers, doctors, nurses, counsellors and people living with HIV & AIDS.  In particularly Joyce and Monica co-ordinate programmes for prevention of mother-to-child transmission which includes educating peer fathers and mothers. 

Deo thinks that one of the biggest challenges is adherence and patient education in rural setttings. Working in rural areas Deo sees a lot of patients who start treatment and then stop because of religious beliefs.

People are often afraid of medication and think it does more harm than the HIV itself. The other major challenge for doctors is access to a regular supply of medication. 

The three of them have attended the conference to learn new things, to collect resources that can be modified in their own training projects and to share their own experiences. They took away some of NAM's patient booklets and new diagrammatic resources The Basics.

Thoko works for an organisation for older people living with HIV.  She is particularly interested in the statistics of older people infected with HIV.  'There is very little information for people living with HIV over 50.'

She came to the stand and picked up a range of resources. In the photo she is holding the HIV & TB booklet. If you are working with people over 50 or want to find out more about Thoko’s work, why not drop her an email and share experiences. Her email address is cmol@mweb.co.za.

We will be putting Thoko's questions about information for ageing populations forward to our editors and seeing how they can cover it in future articles. If you think there are other topics not being covered that would support your work, email us at info@nam.org.uk.

Anneli is a risk manager for Momentum, a company that, with Anneli’s help, has developed in-house programmes for medical aid. Managing risk means helping make sure workers with HIV have the right treatment, they can cope with side-effects and understand how to prevent passing HIV on to others.  Companies all over South Africa are building these programmes, recognising that investing in the health of their workers has measurable benefits for them as well. 

Anneli visited our stand at the last conference and gave valuable feedback about resources which would help support a more integrated response to HIV. She is keen that CD4 be recognised as just one part of an understanding of how HIV affects individuals. She says CD4 counts need to be used alongside other assessments that can help measure the impact of HIV on the body, for example height and weight, disease progression, body mass index, extent of lipodystrophy, other infections, diet and the financial income of the patient. 

Anneli would like to see a resource that prompts people to take into account other factors so the most appropriate care can be offered. Like Anneli, if you have feedback about any of our resources or ideas for topics that should be covered, we would love to hear from you - email info@nam.org.uk.

Mohammed already subscribes to NAM's email bulletin, HIV & AIDS Treatment in Practice. Generally he finds the NAM conference news round-ups particularly useful, CROI coverage being the most recent. 

Topics of particular interest covered recently by NAM include research findings on drugs, the efficacy of microbicides and drug resistance.  He has come to the conference to find out what other doctors are experiencing and how different approaches might be adapted and applied in Zambia.  He says increasing caseloads and over-congestion are challenges being universally faced by healthcare staff across Africa so the conference is an opportunity to share approaches and face these challenges together.

The Anglican Diocese of Highreld runs over 41 home-based care programmes for the communities of Highreld. They offer training to community committees who help identify local need so projects can be tailored appropriately and relevantly. Their particular focus is on children and on HIV education as well as helping encouraging behavioural change to prevent the spread of HIV.

 They are funded by the Elton John Aids Foundation and Childcare Africa Programme.  Sustainable funding is vital to their ability to deliver effective services. They have recently trained 15 caregivers so the publication Caring for the Caregivers had particular relevance for their work.    

This project was set up by Matt three months ago to support the uMqatsheni people. It is the only NGO in the region supporting this 'forgotten community'.

Geographically isolated with no electricity or running water and high unemployment rates in the area, Matt and his small team have to think imaginatively and practically about how to support the large numbers of people living with HIV in the region. Working closely with the tribal leaders in the community Matt's project has been able to recruit Community Care Workers who work within their own villages to support and educate about HIV. 

'All of the workers are drawn from the local area so the community really feels that they 'own' this project.' 

One of the project's particular approaches is to work closely with Zulu men and help re-frame traditional ideas about masculinity, 'it is no good empowering the women about HIV if they go home and their husbands won't use condoms'

Matt took away nine copies of the resource Caring for the Caregivers, one for each of his Community Careworkers.