Graduate Essay
Action Plan for HIV/AIDS support work in South Africa.
Background
I have been exploring and testing a range of options using technology that can be
incorporated into the HIV/AIDS work that I will do upon my return to South Africa. My
spouse (currently studying how school leaders in South Africa are responding to this
pandemic), and I, intend to set up a non-profit organization that will work alongside
schools in South Africa to address the growing health and unemployment challenges
facing communities. These include but are not limited to job creation projects for
unemployed parents, linking community health services and resources to families who
are living with HIV/AIDS, organizing workshops for parents around HIV/AIDS
education and issues of stigma, and facilitating capacity building and life skills
workshops for parents, to name a few. Schools are directly impacted by this pandemic.
Children of these families are often distracted from school when they are left to care for
sick or dying parents. Absenteeism rates are on the increase. A pilot study conducted with
school principals in South Africa in 2004 showed that when their parents are sick and
dying, children stop attending school.
Currently, three Harvard professors are visiting South Africa to explore the possibility of
creating a partnership between the Harvard Graduate School of Education, the School of
Public Health and the South African education ministry. This partnership has the
potential to form part of the initial project work that I will continue to do when I return to
South Africa. I will be using my technology skills to design some of the planned
interventions with schools, parents and the broader community. My final project is an
example of one of the series of workshops I will use for this purpose.
Using technology
Over the last few years, I have had the opportunity to take a range of technology courses
at the Extension School. I have always found a new and interesting technology tool to use
and think about integrating into the HIV/AIDS work that I intend to do when I return to
South Africa. In a previous class, I created an online workshop for principals using the
CCDT tool. This workshop was based on a pilot study conducted in South Africa with
principals in 2004. The study highlighted the growing challenges of addressing
HIV/AIDS not only with parents and families but also with teachers on their staff who
are HIV positive. I would like to build on this design, which focused on principals and
extend it to parents in the community. Using Inspiration in my lesson plan in this class to
do this, demonstrated yet another effective way for me to integrate technology into the
ongoing work with principals, teachers and parents in addressing HIV/AIDS in
communities in South Africa. I have also expanded on the model of this lesson plan for
my final project.
Partnerships
As we envision this work in South Africa, our aim is also to create partnerships between
schools in the U.S and schools in South Africa and to find ways to not only to share best
practices, but also to organize exchange initiatives that will draw on expertise both in the
U.S and in South Africa. This will be developed through both cross-health and education
partnerships. In order to incorporate a research component to this work, we will collect
both quantitative and qualitative data for ongoing evaluation and improvement. I intend
to use technology to build and strengthen these partnerships beyond the exchange
initiative through ongoing discussion boards, dialogue, posting resources, sharing best
practices, online evaluations, and video conferencing. As mentioned earlier, as the
projects between Harvard and South Africa unfold, the research and evaluation processes
will be linked to all this overall work.
Capacity building workshops
Many poor communities in South Africa were deprived of an education in the past. This
has resulted in high illiteracy rates, low skill levels, lack of knowledge around basic
parenting and budgeting skills, etc. Schools have now introduced computer literacy
programs and made these available to parents. Computer centers exist in schools and in
community centers. This will give us direct access to computer centers and will enable us
to use technology as we develop the best learning based capacity building initiatives for
communities.
National program
As we learn from the successes and challenges through implementing projects and
workshops in one city, we will begin to expand the work to schools nationally in South
Africa.