In this study, the researcher is interested in the utilization of HIV/AIDS prevention methods among university students. The purpose of this study was to explore factors that influence the utilization of existing HIV/AIDS prevention methods amongst students at the University of KwaZulu-Natal residing in a selected campus. Four residences within the selected campus were randomly selected and participants were conveniently selected from each of sampled residences. There was a total of 335 respondents and 261 (78%) completed the manual questionnaires while 74 (22%) completed online questionnaires. The study used quantitative approach and was descriptive-exploratory in nature. Data was analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 15. The majority of respondents were young people with the mean age of 22.9 years. The sample comprised 278 (78%) undergraduate and 57 (17%) post graduate students. Study findings showed that the factors which influenced the utilization of HIV/AIDS prevention methods varied and that they were mainly influenced by the awareness of the existing university-based HIV/AIDS prevention strategies. It also emerged that the mostly utilized HIV prevention methods were VCT services and free condoms. Perceived susceptibility and the perceived threat of HIV/AIDS score was also found to be correlated with HIV Risk Index score. Furthermore, there was Correlation between perceived susceptibility and perceived threat of HIV/AIDS and self-efficacy on condoms and their utilization. However, there seemed to be no relationship between utilization of HIV/AIDS prevention methods and these variables. In conclusion, the findings of this study suggest that most of Health Beliefs Model (HBM) variables were not predictors of the utilization of HIV/AIDS prevention methods among students. Intervention aiming to improve the utilization of HIV/AIDS prevention methods among students at the UKZN should focus on removing identified barriers, promoting HIV/AIDS prevention services and providing correct knowledge on HIV for behavioral change. / Thesis (MN)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2009.

This thesis is concerned with an evaluation of AIDS education in KwaZulu-Natal schools. Although HIV and AIDS affect all segments of the population and all age groups, prevention efforts aimed at the youth may be the most effective. HIV/AIDS is a disease most prevalent in the fifteen to thirty-five age group, and if we can decrease rates of transmission in people under twenty, we will save much money, pain and suffering in the next ten years. It is often seen as prudent to save young generations, rather than older ones, and this may be especially true in the case of HIV/AIDS, where HIV/AIDS in the younger, reproductive age groups leads to the very youngest group, that it, babies, being born HIV-positive. In addition, the younger generation may be more easy to save: they have not yet formed unsafe sexual practices, and educating them before they develop habits is easier than changing habits of the older generation. I assessed various education departments' AIDS education programmes, based on the criteria of how well pupils are assisted in changing their unsafe sexual practices, or, if they are not yet sexually active, their attitudes towards sex, and on what type of message and ideal is presented about sexuality and sexual activity. Judged by my framework, I found the existent programmes to be lacking. But this act of assessment allowed for a more thorough evaluation of AIDS education in the region to emerge, and from this, recommendations for AIDS prevention programmes to be developed: AIDS education must occur in the context of more general skills development, skills in negotiating sexuality and sexual relationships, and skills for the negotiation of life in the late twentieth century. Innovative developments in the region, regarding AIDS and sexuality education teacher training, and the development of minimum criteria by which to set up and judge programmes, could be used as the basis for a sound AIDS education programme. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1996.

Social workers are faced with the huge challenge of HIV and AIDS. The increasing number of HIV infected people requires professional intervention. The National Integrated Plan is currently the strategy that social workers apply in service delivery. It offers a range of services such as soup kitchens, food parcels, homework supervision, administration of anti-retroviral drugs and foster care placement to children infected and affected by HIV/AIDS. The bulk of the work facing social workers includes orphans, infected and affected children and child headed households. HIV and AIDS affect the education system in the sense that school going children are infected and affected by AIDS. The life-skills HIV/AIDS programme offered in schools is the strategy that the education system can effectively use to deal with the scourge of HIV/AIDS. Lifeskills HIV/AIDS programme offers educators, children and parents the opportunity to learn about preventative measures, factors that contribute to HIV/AIDS and childhood development. Primary caregivers need to learn about basic facts of HIV/AIDS. This study was a qualitative descriptive study to understand the views of primary caregivers on life - skills HIV/AIDS offered in school. The conceptual framework, which underpinned the study, was the eco-systems approach. The data was collected via in depth interviews with 10 respondents where an interview guide questions was used. The interview sessions were tape-recorded and transcribed. The outcomes of the study revealed that most primary caregivers were of the idea that their children should be taught life-skills HIV/AIDS in schools. The primary caregivers felt that this programme would assist them in understanding numerous behaviours that their children exhibit that predispose them to HIV infections. The findings of this study are tentative in view of the limitations identified in the study. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2007.

The study focuses on how care and support around HIV/AIDS is perceived by volunteer community workers in Kwangcolosi, Kwazulu Natal. Using the social capital framework, the dissertation seeks to understand and illuminate the existing care and support efforts from the community from the perspective of volunteer caregivers. It emanates from the realization that government efforts in the area of care and support for those infected and affected by HIV/AIDS in most rural or peri-urban areas are usually insufficient. Community or family members usually have to step in to fill this gap but their efforts are seldom documented, let alone recognized. These community initiatives have been defined in the wider concept of social capital. The study sought to explore the perceptions of volunteer community workers on care and support provided to people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHAs). The social capital framework and specifically the levels of bonding and bridging and the elements of trust, norms, reciprocity and social networks that act as resources for collective action was used to inform the understanding of these collective community efforts. The study findings revealed that denial, mistrust, stigma and discrimination were some of the hindering factors of social trust which in effect weakened social bonding and bridging. Social norms were also perceived to be on the wane and social networks amongst community members were reported to be existent though feeble. Reciprocity though paltry existed amongst a few community members who borrowed from one another and this played an important role in care and support of those affected by HIV/AIDS. The study concluded that factors such as rural urban migration, urbanization, globalization, poverty and unemployment have diminished social networks and cohesion and this has negatively impacted on care and support provision by community members. The general perception about volunteerism among volunteer community workers was that there is need to financially facilitate volunteers to motivate them to meet expenses that are associated with volunteering such as transport and feeding. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2009.

This study will explore and investigate the response of the Free Methodist Church of Southern Africa (FMCSA) to HIV and AIDS in the Southern KwaZulu-Natal region. It will also reflect on how the Wesleyan Healthcare Response (WHCR) can be used as an inspiration for this Church to fulfil its mission in engaging with HIV and AIDS from a gender-sensitive perspective. With reference to the knowledge that religions possess assets for addressing HIV and AIDS and gender inequality, the study argues that the FMCSA possess the necessary resource to address these interconnected challenges which it is not profitably employing currently. This resource is the theological and practical healthcare response developed by the founder of Methodism, John Wesley, during his lifetime. Using the missio Dei theory to explain the mission of the church in the world, and considering Jesus‘ healing ministry as patterns of the missio Dei‘s materialisation in times of health crises, the study suggests that the FMCSA as a Christian church is expected to respond to HIV and AIDS, a contemporary health crisis in South Africa. The study also hypothesises that Wesley‘s healthcare response is a legacy to the Free Methodists that the FMCSA can appropriate as an effective asset to fulfil missio Dei in time of HIV and AIDS and its gendered nature in the South African context. Therefore, the question responded to in this study is: how can the Wesleyan Healthcare Response inspire the FMCSA to respond to the HIV and AIDS pandemic from a gender-sensitive perspective? The following objectives were formulated in order to respond to this question: 1. to explore the discursive account of HIV and AIDS and its gendered nature in South Africa and the response of the FMCSA; 2. to critically reflect on WHCR as FMCSA‘s potential resource for missio Dei's fulfilment in time of HIV and AIDS; 3. to examine the attitude and concrete response to HIV and AIDS pandemic in the Free Methodist Southern KwaZulu-Natal (FMSKZN); 4. to assess the extent to which WHCR has been used as a resource for addressing HIV and AIDS by the Free Methodist Southern KwaZulu-Natal; 5. to suggest insights to make WHCR a resource to respond to HIV and AIDS within the Southern KwaZulu-Natal context. The data for the study was collected using empirical and non-empirical research methods. Therefore, in addition to the written sources, individual interviews with selected church leaders and caregivers and focus group discussions with ordinary adult and youth church members in five circuits of the FMSKZN were conducted. In examining the attitudes and concrete responses to HIV and AIDS in the FMSKZN, the study realised that this Church failed to learn from WHCR in order to fulfil missio Dei during this pandemic in terms of gender issues. It therefore postulates insights from WHCR that will help fill the gaps identified in the response of this Church to HIV and AIDS and its gendered nature. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2013.

The high levels of HIV prevalence amongst young people in several sub-Saharan African countries, in spite of massive HIV prevention interventions, has prompted calls to investigate the contextual factors that drive the epidemic. A crucial component that often has been missed in the literature is an understanding of the mediation processes involved in HIV prevention communication within cultural contexts. The uniqueness of this study is thus premised in its focus on the structures and processes of meaningproduction within social groups, with regard to sex and HIV/AIDS, and how the produced meanings affect the interpretation and impact of HIV prevention texts. Using Hermeneutics, Reception Theory and the Social Constructionism Theory, this study examines how students at University of KwaZulu-Natal, University of Zululand and the Durban University of Technology make sense of the cultural meanings offered by HIV prevention messages, such as ‘Abstinence’, ‘Be faithful’, ‘Condomise’ and Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT). A multi-method approach, involving a questionnaire survey, in-depth interviews with sampled students and HIV/AIDS coordinators, and non-participant observations, was used to obtain data for the study. Findings of the study support the conclusion that the categories of students’ responses to HIVprevention messages were often predicated upon their relationships and participation in the various social groups. Their decisions to adopt/not adopt these prevention options were often based, therefore, on how meanings attached to these options articulated with the social significance of sex and sexual practices. In the context of intersubjective meaning-formation, therefore, the relational categories of abstinence, being faithful, condomise and VCT should not be conceptualised as discreet, frozen categories, but should rather be understood as open-ended possibilities existing concurrently, coextensively and dialectically. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2008.

The interface between apartheid and Aids in the unique South African context between 1987 and 1990 is particularly striking. Natal was such a volatile ground, one rocked by political violence and threatened by a world epidemic. A literary study of the four years' Natal Witness Aids articles and an oral witness by four clergy living in Natal at the times reveal an intriguing debate and deeds by the people in Natal. The difficulty in ascertaining the actual spread of the disease in South Africa was imperative in the search for a reliable information system. Neither the random testing prior to 1987 nor the secret testing between 1987 and 1989 produced reliable Aids statistics. The launching of surveillance testing in 1990 not only amounted to a reliable information system but also revealed staggering statistics reports. Not only was the infection doubling every six months, but it was becoming predominantly heterosexual and exacerbated in the black race. A close study of the Natal Witness articles reveals that the Natal Aids debate could be chronologically divided into four characteristic periods. The 1987 debate was an international debate because the focus was on what was happening in North America and in Europe. The 1988 debate was an African debate because the focus on Aids for the first time placed the African continent on spotlight indicating signs of its future lead in infection and mortality. The 1989 debate was a South African debate because the articles featured miner's plague and the gay plague and their possible negative influence on the economy. The 1990 debate zoomed into the Natal province as it revealed attitudes, myths, and controversies that underpinned the Aids disease. The Natal Witness reports are both contrasted and complemented by the reflections of four Christian ministers who served in Natal at the time. The clergy used particular philosophical frameworks to reconstruct their experiences. According to Sol Jacobs, a 'black consciousness' Methodist priest, the churches did not engage in prevention because of their racial divisions. Vic Bredencamp witnessed a judgemental church, one that could not deal with the Aids disease because of its punitive theology. Ronald Nicolson, an Anglican priest, only witnessed an ignorant church, one that could not become involved in Aids prevention because of its paralysis ignorance. Lastly, Paul Decock, a Catholic priest, witnessed an active church, one that was actively involved in Aids activism as early as 1987. The ministers differed immensely on how the church responded to the Aids disease as well as in the reasons for that particular response. Both the articles and the interviews were found to be misleading in several instances. Through editing and selection, the articles left out important details and articles. The interviewees could barely establish a chronology in their memory of events. With the help of internal and external evidence however, both the interviews and the articles complement each other in establishing the Aids experiences of the Christians in Natal. / Thesis (M.Th.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2006.

Paul Germond and Sepetla Molapo have defined bophelo as a particular BaSotho conception of health and religion. This scholarship defining bophelo derives several policy principles for public health seeking to appreciate religious entities as assets: 1) should actively engage religious entities and to treat them as potential assets in HIV prevention 2) that the value of religion for health is typically not tangible to western scientific and technical methodologies 3) health and religion are sought at a communal level, at which individuals are united through bonds of trust and a common set of cultural practices, often expressed with reference ancestor reverence. Germond and Molapo argue that conceptions of health and religion in other southern African cultures and nations are closely analogous to bophelo, and sketch the relevance of these conceptions for the effectiveness of the public health response to the HIV epidemic in southern Africa. The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is the United States initiative to prevent HIV and treat AIDS across the globe. PEPFAR is notable for funding a high proportion of faith-based organizations for HIV prevention relative to other major HIV and AIDS initiatives. This is study of two faith-based organizations, HOPE Worldwide and Youth for Christ. Both received funding from PEPFAR to conduct HIV prevention programs in Durban in 2007. The study assesses the conceptions of religion as an asset for their interventions with specific reference to the principles of Germond and Molapo’s bophelo scholarship. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2011.

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.Th.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2011.

The biggest pandemic that the Sub- Saharan Africa is faced with is HIV / AIDS. This research examines the experience and challenges of living with HIV / AIDS; as well as how people living with HIV / AIDS use religious/spiritual coping mechanisms and the effect on their quality of life. In addition, it examines the perceived role and effect of Faith-Based Organisations in enabling or impairing coping with their HIV challenges. A qualitative methodology was adopted and semi-structured interviews conducted with ten individuals living with HIV / AIDS. A thematic analysis of these transcripts revealed that most of the interviewees used religious/spiritual coping methods, which generally led to improved quality of life. However, results also showed that religious beliefs/practices could also be a hindrance to coping. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, PIetermaritzburg, 2006.