Community Media Trust

OPEN LETTER TO MINISTER MOTSOALEDI

garethdawson — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 11:17:47 +0000

OPEN LETTER TO MINISTER MOTSOALEDI:

PLEASE INTERVENE. GLOBAL FUND PAYMENT IS SEVEN MONTHS LATE – OUR LIFE-SAVING PROGRAMS WILL CLOSE

Dr Aaron Motsoaledi
Minister of Health

6 February 2011

Dear Minister

GLOBAL FUND PAYMENT IS SEVEN MONTHS LATE – OUR LIFE-SAVING PROGRAMS WILL CLOSE

We are recipients of South Africa’s Global Fund Round 6 grant. We expected payments from the Global Fund in July 2011 and January 2012. This grant funds life-saving programmes that we implement. These payments are late. Some of us have continued to implement our Global Fund sponsored programmes using reserve funds and other income, but we can no longer continue to do this. The consequence is that our programmes will have to close and many people will have to be retrenched.

The Department of Health is the Principal Recipient of the grant. It is unclear to us why the grant has been delayed continuously. Our understanding is that the Global Fund systems are extremely complex and that the Fund is not satisfied that the Department of Health has met its stringent criteria. We also understand that the effort to consolidate the Round 6, Round 9 and Round 10 grants into a single stream has contributed to the delay.

Whatever the reasons, we know that each of us has made a great effort to meet the demands of the Principal Recipient and the Global Fund. It is unfortunate that the Global Fund has failed to make contingency plans and defaulted its payment.

The situation is now dire. We therefore request your urgent intervention to help get the Global Fund to meet its commitments so that we receive our money before the 15th of February.

Also, nearly every payment from the Global Fund has been late. This is not a sustainable way to fund programmes. We ask that the Department of Health and Global Fund meet and commit to paying our expenses for July to December 2011 and our current tranche for the period January to March 2012. We also ask for a commitment to making all future payments on time.

Thank you for considering our requests.

Yours sincerely,

Community Media Trust
Humana People to People
Mindset
Redpeg
Society for Family Health
Soul City
South African Department of Health Global Fund Round 6 recipients including:
Treatment Action Campaign

For media comment, please call TAC Chairperson Nonkosi Khumalo on +27 11 356 4100 or email her at khumalo@section27.org.za. You can also call TAC Deputy General Secretary Lihle Dlamini on 021 422 1700 or email her at lihle@tac.org.za.

R.I.P. Jason Wessenaar – Moloatsi

garethdawson — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 13:35:34 +0000

The directors and staff of Community Media Trust express our heartfelt sympathy and condolences to the family and friends of Jason Wessenaar. The brutal slaying of Jason has left us with a deep sense of outrage and we call on the police to intensify their efforts to bring Jason’s killer to justice.

Jason presented our flagship TV show Siyayinqoba Beat It! for two seasons in 2004 and 2005. From the outset Siyayinqoba Beat It! cut through the ignorance and denial that surrounded HIV/AIDS in those years. All our presenters and most of the people on the show were living openly with HIV. For two years on national television Jason was the brave face of the millions of people living with HIV in our country. In his words he said “It allowed people to openly talk about HIV/Aids. They could tell their stories and relate to me.”

Jason was quiet and unassuming but hugely brave. He was open about being gay, he was open about being HIV positive, he was open to the suffering of others and fought tirelessly for treatment for those who needed it. His death is a huge loss not only for those who knew him, but for all who value human dignity and the triumph of the human spirit over adversity.

Hambe Kahle, Jason Wessenaar!

Please download and sign the petition and email it to justiceforjason@section27.org.za

We have moved

garethdawson — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 10:41:40 +0000

Community Media Trust have moved to new offices in Rondebosch

You can now mail us at:
Suite 06EB, East Block
Tannery Park
23A Belmont Road
Rondebosch

Our phone number remains +27 21 788 9163

SIYAYINQOBA BEAT IT! RETURNS TO YOUR SCREENS

garethdawson — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 08:24:33 +0000

Popular TV show Siyayinqoba Beat It! is back on air from 3 November! The show will be broadcast on Thursdays at 1:30 pm on SABC 1.

Siyayinqoba Beat It! is a weekly TV show for everyone living with HIV and AIDS, as well as their partners, families, friends and care givers. Since 1999 the show has provided a platform for people living with AIDS to share their challenges and victories. Many people living in isolation with HIV find that through Siyayinqoba Beat It! they are part of a vibrant and growing community of people who are meeting and beating the challenges of AIDS.

THE BEAT IT! TEAM IS BACK IN ACTION

Nokubonga Yawa returns to fill the presenter’s seat, making Siyayinqoba Beat It! still the only health magazine show hosted by a person living openly with HIV. Nokubonga is a young activist who, at 24, has been living with HIV for nine years. She discovered that she was HIV positive when she fell pregnant at age 15. She has life experience beyond her years and she has found ways to live positively and inspire others to do the same.

Dr Trevor joins Nokubonga in the studio as our resident doctor to help clarify medical facts and emphasise correct protocols. He specialises in HIV and AIDS and has vast experience in chronic diseases.

Out in the field, our team of young Community Journalists (CJs) based in KwaZulu Natal, Gauteng, Eastern Cape, Free State and Western Cape will once again research, write, shoot and tell the stories which most affect them and their communities. The documentary inserts they shoot are personal, informative and educational. Through their work behind the scenes and on camera the CJs continue to motivate other young people to take action and get involved in their communities.

WHAT’S NEW THIS SEASON

Siyayinqoba Beat It! goes interactive this season as we feature questions and comments from viewers during the show. Each episode will feature questions received via Facebook, Twitter and mail and these will be answered through studio discussions. Our cameras will also be present at dozens of open days, training sessions and other health and HIV/AIDS events around the country to capture questions for the interactive segment of the show. Viewers will also be able to watch highlights and promos on our website.

The 24-minute magazine show is produced by Community Media Trust in partnership with SABC Education.

Don’t miss Siyayinqoba Beat It! on Thursdays at 1:30 pm on SABC 1!

Another gallant is gone- Winstone Zulu

garethdawson — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 14:37:34 +0000

Community Media Trust mourns the lost of AIDS Activist Winstone Zulu. Winstone spoke out strongly against Mbeki’s denialism, after initially being convinced to stop his ARVs and then finding himself getting very ill.

“What mattered to me as person living with HIV was to be told that HIV did not cause AIDS. That was nice. Of course, it was like printing money when the economy is not doing well. Or pissing in your pants when the weather is too cold. Comforting for a while but disastrous in the long run.”

Winstone Zulu, Zambian AIDS Activist

I’m a person living with HIV, I’ve been living with HIV for the last 12 years, since 1997 I was on antiretrovirals. Until one of the greatest people that I respect very much, one of my heroes Thabo Mbeki made me start doubting, well he didn’t make me start doubting. I’ve always wanted to be HIV negative and he sort of encouraged me to think in those lines. I decided to drop my drugs in the year 2000 and just wished HIV away. And it was kind of very stupid for someone to do but I think you will understand if you are living with HIV and you really want to live, say up to the age of Madiba and someone comes and say HIV has nothing to do with AIDS. It’s very attractive and I got very attracted and decided to start denying that HIV caused AIDS. And that denial has been very costly to me and I’m very lucky to be alive now at least on a wheelchair because some of the people, I was with in the panel, I’m a member of President Mbeki’s Presidential Panel, some of them are dead now. I think about three people, we were together, are dead. And my CD4 count plummeted from 500 when I stopped taking the medications to 36 in February this year, until I restarted and I’m able to stand now and speak to you.

Winstone Zulu, Zambian AIDS Activist

The king, the car and the clamp

garethdawson — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 10:28:04 +0000

By Marcus Low and Nathan Geffen.

An expensive gift has cast new shadows over the Kwazulu-Natal (KZN) Department of Health’s controversial decision to purchase and use an unsafe circumcision device called the Tara KLamp. In addition, a promised assessment of the clamp has not materialised, the clamp is still being used, and more adverse events are being reported.

The Zulu edition of the Sunday Times on 18 September broke this important story.

In 2010, we published a four-part story about the KZN government rolling out an unsafe circumcision device called the Tara KLamp. We concluded:

This is a terrible situation. Companies selling the Tara KLamp are making money by inflicting injuries and suffering. The KZN government’s adoption of the clamp is, in the best case scenario, deeply suspicious and unscientific.

We did not have evidence of corruption and so left matters at that.

On 18 September the Zulu edition of the Sunday Times newspaper reported that a businessman, Ibrahim Yusuf, had given King Goodwill Zwelithini a car worth R1 million. According to our translation, Yusuf said that he had given the king the car as a symbol of respect and that he had not met the King before their meeting at the reed ceremony.

Yusuf is the director of Intratrek Properties, the company that sold the Tara Klamp devices to the KZN government. The Mail & Guardian has written about Yusuf’s murky past here and here.

In July 2010 the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) wrote to the KZN MEC for Health, questioning the use of the unsafe Tara KLamp device. He responded:

What we have explained to the Minister and now indirectly to you is that we are committed to massive Medical Male Circumcision in KZN as directed by His Majesty our King. We will do it medically as the Majesty instructed us. The king has instructed us that no one should die as a result of our MMC intervention but he did not instruct us that no one should have pain.

We found this response disturbing for many reasons, not least because an elected provincial government is not supposed to take orders from a traditional leader. But it is also strange that when confronted about the clamp, the MEC chose to invoke the king – thus raising the question, was the king involved with the decision to use the clamp in the first place?

The manner in which these devices were purchased was suspicious long before the story of Yusuf’s gift to the king came to light. (See this Mail & Guardian report.) For example, there was no tender advertised for the Tara KLamp. Yet TAC had purchased a Tara KLamp from another provider at a lower price than the KZN paid for its bulk orders. Even though we requested it, we were never shown the justification for purchasing the Tara KLamp – which is both more expensive and, more importantly, much riskier than standard circumcision.

Oblivious to the facts

When TAC wrote to the KZN Health Ministry in July 2010 we outlined our concerns with the use of the Tara KLamp. In their response, and in a subsequent meeting with the KZN premier and Health Department officials in late 2010 they dismissed our concerns. This was despite us presenting two men who had experienced serious adverse events to the meeting. We also published cell phone video footage of two other men who had experienced serious adverse events due to the clamp. We have recently learned of more men who have experienced severe adverse events, some of whom had to be hospitalised.

At our December meeting Premier Mkhize indicated that the KZN Department of Health was going to assess the safety and efficacy of the Tara KLamp and that future use would be dependent on this. We pointed out in the meeting that this was a problem. If this was operational research it would be unethical because a clinical trial had shown the device was dangerous and therefore it should not be used operationally. Alternatively, if this was a clinical trial, then ethical approval was necessary and this was unlikely to be given after the clamp had failed in a well conducted clinical trial in Orange Farm. No one in the meeting could tell us whether the intended research was a clinical trial or operational.

TAC wrote a letter to Premier Mkhize asking for further details of the KZN government’s research. There was no response. That no trial has taken place or will take place is confirmed by a presentation that Tim Farley, until recently of the World Health Organization, delivered at the International AIDS Society Conference in Rome earlier this year. According to the slides from his presentation, no further trials are planned.

The national government also set up a task team, with WHO assistance, to look into the Tara KLamp. Nothing seems to have come of it.

In a September 2011 report from the KZN Department of Health the only mention made of the Tara KLamp is to argue that it is cheaper than standard circumcision. The price breakdown given lacks detail and so we cannot analyse it. A circumcision expert told us plainly it’s “crap”. In our earlier article we gave a detailed breakdown of the cost involved and the clamp was significantly more expensive.

Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi assured the public last year that the clamp would only be used in KZN. We are worried however because we have been informed that the Tara KLamp is being promoted to representatives of various other provinces.

Voluntary medical male circumcision is an important intervention that can prevent many new HIV infections. It is tragic that the sellers of the Tara KLamp along with members of the KZN government are undermining it by continuing to use this dangerous device. There needs to be an inquiry into why and how the KZN government purchased it.

The role of the Sunday Times

It is puzzling that this story has been reported only in the Zulu edition of the Sunday Times. We have emailed people at the paper, including the editor Ray Hartley, to find out why it was not published in the English edition. The Zulu edition of the Sunday Times has a comparatively small readership to the English one. We have received no response.

We understand that there may be various editorial or deadline-related reasons why things happen in certain ways at newspapers. However, by being in possession of important information and withholding it from its main publication we feel the Sunday Times has let down its readers and failed to act in the public interest.

We urge the Sunday Times to publish the article in its English edition.

Original article from http://www.quackdown.info/article/king-car-and-clamp/

PHC Resources

garethdawson — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 09:26:10 +0000

Collection of the presentations and supporting documents for the PHC Symposium

Latest Documents

Recommendations (17th Oct 2011)

Recommendations – with delegates opinions

_____________________________________________

Re-engineering Primary Health Care in South Africa – Policies, strategies and implementation (20 September 2011)

An overview of the role of civil society in provision of community-based health care

Re-engineering Primary Health Care in South Africa: How do we do it? (21 September 2011)

Progress and challenges with implementation: Gauteng

Progress and challenges with implementation: KZN

PHC Documents

TAC: Taking HAART Douarnenez Film Festival

garethdawson — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 10:28:10 +0000

Articles from French media on the World Premiere of TAC: Taking HAART.

Ouest-France – 25 July 2011

To view the original french of this article please click here.

A life of fighting against apartheid… and Aids

Until Saturday, South Africa is on show at the 34th Douarnenez Film Festival. The occasion presented an exceptional opportunity for meetings. For example, with the director Jack Lewis and the activist Zackie Achmat.

TAC, or the Treatment Action Campaign, a movement, launched by Zackie Achmat, demanding equal access to AIDS treatment for all, is the theme of the film by Jack Lewis that had its world premiere this week at the 34th Douarnenez Film Festival.

Zackie Achmat, an activist

Born into a working-class, mixed race and Muslim home Zackie Achmat was a young activist in the anti-apartheid movement before he became a tireless fighter. He committed to the fight against AIDS, a decision which would later jeopardised his health.

“I learned from my father that we should neither hurt nor judge others,” said Zackie who, at 14, attended the uprising of the township of Soweto (1976), before attempting to set fire to the administrative offices of his high school in Cape Town.

Arrested, sentenced to be whipped, he enlisted in the ANC or African National Congress (1) at a young age, in which he remains an active member. From 1985 he was at the front of the anti-AIDS movement in a country where, already, the disease was devastating, when at the same time homosexuality was still illegal.

Five years of inaction, ten years lost

In South Africa, AIDS has spread very quickly. Yet very open on the question, Nelson Mandela demonstrated a culpable inaction on his accession to the presidency in 1994. Perhaps for fear of upsetting traditions and customs.

His successor, Thabo Mbeki, locked up in an inconsistent approach, made use of charlatans of all sorts to combat the scourge. Result: from 1994 to 2011, the number of people affected goes from one million to 5.4 million.

From 1998 to 2003, Zackie Achmat, infected by the virus, refused treatment as a protest for as long as there was discrimination in access to healthcare. Finally, through the strength of legal trials and campaigns, his movement obtained success in part with the arrival (against the wishes of multinational pharmaceutical companies) of generic drugs.

Jack Lewis, director

The outcome of this struggle is symbolized by a powerful image: Nelson Mandela putting on the “HIV positive” T-shirt. Despite the rallying of the churches of all denominations, the game is far from over: only 1.5 million infected people have proper access to care and 2.5 million patients are awaiting treatment.

Jack Lewis, director and anti-apartheid activist, who in 1994 founded the Out in Africa gay and lesbian film festival, engaged in the fight against AIDS, recounts the years of fighting in his documentary TAC – Taking Haart.

Archival footage and testimonies honour these men and women who have devoted all their energy, their courage, to these ten years of struggle.

Also by the same director, Proteus is a fiction co-produced with John Greyson in 2004. Its action takes place in 1718 in the prison of Robben Island. A story of friendship and love between a black prisoner and a young white marine from Rotterdam.

(1) Created in 1912 to defend the interests of the black majority against the white minority, the ANC (African National Congress), a member of the Socialist International, was banned by the National Party during apartheid in 1960. Then legalized February 2, 1990. Apartheid was abolished in June 1991.

Découvrez L’Afrique du Sud victime du Sida au coeur du festival de Dournenez sur Culturebox !

TAC: Taking HAART – Dates and times

garethdawson — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 08:13:33 +0000

Here are the dates for screenings of the CMT produced documentary TAC: Taking HAART at the Tri Continental Film Festival.

Fri 9 Sept – 20:00, Maponya Sterkinekor - Soweto
Sat 10 Sept – 14:15, Rosebank Mall Nouveau - Johannesburg
Tues 13 Sept – 20:00, Maponya Sterkinekor - Soweto
Wed 14 Sept – 19:30, Bioscope - Johannesburg

Thurs 22 Sept – 20:00, Brooklyn Mall Nouveau - Tshwane/Pretoria
Sat 24 Sept – 20:00, Brooklyn Mall Nouveau - Tshwane/Pretoria

Sat 17 Sept – 14:00, V&A Cinema Nouveau - Cape Town
Wed 21 Sept – 20:00, V&A Cinema Nouveau - Cape Town
Fri 23 Sept – 17:30, V&A Cinema Nouveau - Cape Town

For more information on the Tri Continental Film Festival.

TAC: Taking HAART

garethdawson — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 09:41:57 +0000

TAC: Taking HAART

The latest Community Media Trust documentary, directed by Jack Lewis, will be premiering at this years TRI-CONTINENTAL FILM FESTIVAL (TCFF).

TCFF is South Africa’s only dedicated human rights film event. The festival attracts a large, diverse audience of film lovers, activists and socially conscious folk from all walks of life and social stratum. Film that promotes democratisation, deepens understanding, and affords those marginalised a substantive voice is more vital than ever in a rapidly transforming world. TCFF has played a significant role in creating a sustainable and continually growing audience for social justice cinema over the past nine years, through film selection that is nuanced, relevant, informative and well-balanced. Organisers will continue this tradition in 2011 with a programme that reflects global currents of change and action.

We will be posting more on the screening times and special events as soon as the information is available.

In the meantime take a look at the trailer.