Addressing the
politicians about BCC, the Minister of Health
and Social Welfare Dr. Mphu Ramatlapeng appealed
to political leaders to take a leading role in
encouraging behavior change among their
supporters.
She said political leaders have great influence
to their supporters therefore their contribution
is vital in transforming people to adopt good
morals in order to prevent the spread of HIV and
AIDS.
The Minister mentioned among the achieved
milestone in the national response to the fight
against HIV and AIDS include access to
Prevention of Mother to Child (PMTCT) services
in all facilities, launching of Know Your Status
(KYS) campaign in 2004, access to treatment,
access to PEP for emergency cases and recently
encouraging medical male circumcision.
Therefore, Dr. Ramatlapeng added that the BCC
strategy will now complement all initial
national responses by preventing any more new
cases. Above all, she added that the BCC
strategy focuses more on encouraging people to
stop Multiple and Concurrent Partners (MCP) and
stick to one love and faithfulness.
Presenting the key aspects of BCC strategy the
Senior BCC Technical Adviser of the Ministry of
Health Ms. Mamello Morrison said the BCC
strategy 2008 – 2013 is a guiding principle
aimed to produce clear and consistent messages
about HIV prevention for desired behavior
change, to involve men in HIV prevention
programs, and engage all levels of leadership to
advocate for behavior change.
The primary targets of this strategy are men and
women of reproductive age, youths, vulnerable
groups (migrants, herd boys, sex workers,
prisoners and men have sex with other men) as
well as People Living With HIV and AIDS. The
secondary targets are teachers, parents, health
workers, workplace managers and families of
people living with HIV and AIDS.
She therefore challenged politicians to ensure
that their political songs and slogans have BCC
messages and disseminate BCC messages regularly
to their supporters to ensure the messages reach
all.
“Politicians are very influential leaders that
if they test in public every follower or
supporter will follow them,” she added.
Another BCC Advisor Mr. Refiloe Litjobo said
only through true leadership this country could
transform behavior of youth to the better. He
said HIV and AIDS is not business as usual and
that calls for people to prevent new infections
by starting changing sexual behavior from
multiple sexual partners to having only one
love.
The politicians took the challenge with two
hands and promised to disseminate the BCC
messages wherever they are. At the end the
politicians formed a task force that will lead
the politicians in fulfilling their role
effectively in the implementation of BCC.
Similar BCC meeting were held with other
different leaders as part of campaign to take
the BCC strategy messages to all groups of
society. Facilitators were BCC Technical
Advisors from the Ministry of Health department
of Health Education. The BCC program is funded
by the Global fund Round 8 HIV and AIDS grant to
disseminate the BCC message as guided by the
strategy with the view to prevent new HIV
infection in the society.
