In the fight against the HIV and AIDS pandemic, the South African government introduced different measures to address and manage the impact of HIV and AIDS. One of these strategies encompassed prevention and education programmes like the Peer Education Programme. Some factors were however identified, indicating that the Peer Education Programme might not be successful, which could be linked to the non-performance of HIV and AIDS Peer Educators. The goal of this study is to explore the reasons for non-performance of duties by HIV and AIDS Peer Educators within the Department of Agriculture, Eastern Cape Province. For data collection a randomised cross-sectional survey was utilised as the research design and a structured questionnaire used as a data collection tool. The questionnaire was administered with a group of HIV and AIDS Peer Educators, where each respondent completed his/her questionnaire independently of others. No sampling was done as the researcher considered the population to be manageable. From a population of 49, only 32 – 65% agreed to participate in the study. Copyright / Dissertation (MSW)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Social Work and Criminology / unrestricted