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Botswana Journalists Step Up Coverage of Health with IWMF Project
By Lindsey Wray
To many people, World AIDS Day means sporting a red ribbon on Dec. 1.
To those who have been affected by AIDS, its meaning stretches farther than a looped piece of fabric.
Some of the personal stories associated with the disease were recently published in a supplement to Mmegi, an independent daily newspaper in Botswana. The project is associated with IWMF’s Maisha Yetu project, which aims to enhance the quality and consistency of media coverage of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
Through Maisha Yetu, which means "our lives" in Swahili, local trainers in Centers of Excellence in Botswana, Kenya and Senegal are working with journalists on everything from covering maternal and infant healthcare to facilitating information flow between the media and stakeholders.
The hope of the project, which is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is for for more informative media coverage of health.
Beata Kasale, the trainer in Botswana who worked with journalists on the World AIDS Day supplement, acknowledged the importance of disseminating health information via media outlets.
"Although it has been 20 years since the first HIV infection was identified, there is still a problem with regard to curbing the stigma and discrimination surrounding HIV/AIDS," she wrote in an e-mail. "The aim is to give HIV/AIDS faces so that more and more people can identify with HIV and treat it as any other disease like diabetes and cancer among others."
Lindsey Wray is the communications assistant at the International Women’s Media Foundation.