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“This
sex is a complicated thing” – Cultural factors in the history of
HIV/AIDS training content, methodology, and organisational issues, Western
Cape, South Africa, 1989-2004
Stephen van
Houten
Healthcare
Corporation of St John's, Canada
One of the major challenges that South African HIV/AIDS training
organisations faced between 1989 and 2004 was the incorporation of
relevant cultural factors into their training content and
methodology.
This paper provides an historical examination of the cultural factors
underlying the delivery of HIV/AIDS training to health care workers in
this period. Cultural factors are examined with reference to the way in
which health care workers and trainers understood and discussed the origin
and transmission of HIV, the treatment of HIV-positive persons, and the
support of caretakers of AIDS orphans.
Also, this paper examines the purported reluctance of Africans to
discuss sex, the training of first language trainers, and male
circumcision. Finally, this paper examines the ways in which training
organisations and health care workers managed these cultural factors
historically. |
