Convergence: Volume 37 Number 4

In 2000 I attended the biennial International AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa. This was the thirteenth conference, but the first to be held in Africa; previous meetings had been in Canada, Europe, Japan or the US. What happened – and what happened this year with the Bangkok conference – is that many researchers, particularly US-based ones, stayed away. In 2000 they stayed home

ostensibly because of South African President Mbeki’s questioning HIV as the cause of AIDS. This year tensions between abstinence (don’t engaged in risk behaviours) and harm reduction (reduce harm when engaging in risk behaviours) were cited as reasons to skip Bangkok. But my belief is that many in the ‘developed’world have a much easier time sleeping at night if majority-world challenges like AIDS remain abstract.

Durban was my second International, after helping organise the community scholarship programme for Vancouver 1996. The Vancouver conference brought over 1000 delegates, mostly from Africa, Asia and Latin America, to Vancouver. Their presence was vital and enriching, but being in Africa and walking, eating and talking in a place where up to one in three adults is living with HIV put things in a wholly different perspective. I was given the privilege of facilitating three skills-building workshops for the community programme in Durban, and while the contexts of practice were often quite different, we quickly reached a consensus regarding purpose and principles. I remember very little of the ‘science’ from Durban, but the community programme remains an archetypal example of how adult education can take a leadership role in meeting the world’s challenges.

So I was curious: to what extent and in what ways are adult education principles used in the fight against HIV/AIDS in the majority world? From the quality and range of submissions we received, adult educators contribute to the provision of prevention, care, and advocacy on a global scale.

Our articles represent a broad range of geographic, professional and community experiences, though some commonalities come through loud and clear. Issues of power – for women and girls, youth, drug users, sex workers and ethnic minority communities – figure prominently. Matters of local practice are examined deftly and compellingly, as are questions of local and national policy. And stories – of workers and clients, teachers and learners – are integral.

Peggy Gabo Ntseane reports on community-based research in Botswana. Botswana has both an explosive HIV epidemic and arguable the most sophisticated adult education infrastructure in sub-Saharan Africa. Ntseane and her community partners researched the complexities of sex work in Botswana. Her analysis of sex work makes compelling arguments for legal, regulated, empowered working conditions, to mitigate poverty and reduce workers’ (and their clients’) vulnerability to HIV/AIDS. Her evidence is strong; will the political will be found to revolutionise how sex work is viewed in Botswanan public policy?

David Jele, whose expertise is adult education policy, examines the HIV epidemic in his native Swaziland. He synthesises various policy documents, research reports and his insider’s knowledge of Swazi culture to paint a rich picture of why HIV has exploded there. Like Ntseane, Jele sees stigma and discrimination as forces that both result from HIV infection and which propagate the epidemic. In particular, any emphasis on widespread HIV testing, unless it integrates transparent and reliable guarantees of confidentiality, will only drive persons away from testing, treatment and care.

Many people don’t realise that the Caribbean has the second fastest growing AIDS epidemic after Africa. Roberto Sanabria’s work with Vida/SIDA (Life/AIDS) in Chicago might at first seem out of place in this special edition. But as the boundaries between North and South continue to blur, so too will the borders between what are often wholly different HIV pandemics. Roberto’s work with the ex-pat Puerto Rican community shows how a ‘minority’ culture’s values and traditions must be taken into account when fomenting community education strategies (the Terence Higgins Trust in the UK <http://www.tht.org.uk> has implemented a range of programmes targeting expat African communities in London, to similar good effect).

Peter Kaufmann works for Family Health International in Vietnam. FHI is an international NGO that provides financial support and capacity development to projects related to family, youth and reproductive health, including HIV/AIDS around the world. Kaufmann’s account shows how international collaboration often works best when international donors take on a supporting role, and let locals drive the agenda. In a country where stigma regarding sex work and drug use is high, the successes reported here are remarkable.

Femi Soyinka maps out the breadth and depth of NGO development, when local experts and international donor partners collaborate. NELA has developed into a responsive, fluid large NGO that supports smaller NGOs working in the HIV/AIDS sector. Skills building, programme development and inter-agency communication are some of the integral ways NELA acts as a quasi-peak body

for NGOs in Nigeria.

Finally, Bob Hill offers a US-based perspective on current American international AIDS policy. In examining policy documents, critical research, and current events, he maps out how the Bush regime’s facile, sex-phobic, abstinence-obsessed, pro-big Pharma global AIDS initiative is both hegemonic and dangerous. As odious as US policy is on these issues (under President Clinton, trade interests related to big Pharma also superceded the need to make anti-retroviral therapy affordable in the majority world), many Americans – like Hill – are cognisant of these issues. And actively working to create change in US foreign policy.

We were pleased with the range of submission we received, but we can’t claim these articles represent the full range of majority world HIV/AIDS work. In Eastern Europe the HIV epidemic is fuelled by skyrocketing rates of injection drug use. In South Asia and China, micro-epidemics among migrant workers, sex workers and IDUs are leading to millions of new infections each year: India may soon have the most HIV-positive people in the world, a figure only offset by an overall population nearly five times the whole of sub-Saharan Africa. And more accounts of practitioner’s experiences – the specifics of programme planning, popular education, and community development – are still needed.

So don’t view this edition of Convergence as the definitive account of HIV/AIDS-related adult education practice in the majority world. Consider this instead as the beginning of the conversation. We hope to receive more of your experiences.