Zimbabwean stories of "Best Practice" - SAfAIDS

5. CASE STUDY 1Culture Dialogue Series - a Transformative Approach to addressinggender inequality in Seke district of Zimbabwe(A partnership project between SAfAIDS and Seke Rural)5.1 IntroductionSeke is a peri-urban community situated about 50km to the south-east of Harare. The district has a populationof 1.5 million people. The Seke people, living as they do close to Zimbabwe's capital city, are influencedby Western culture, yet their own culture remains rooted in traditional values and practices. Therefore, mostof the cultural practices already outlined can be found in Seke. The people of Seke are generally poor, withmost making a living from growing vegetables and selling them in Harare. The area has been hard hit byHIV and AIDS, firstly because of its proximity to Harare and secondly it is affected by the same issues fuellingthe epidemic in the whole country. The village headmen, kraal heads, traditional healers, grandmothersand grandfathers play a significant role in maintaining order in the community. They are considered'custodians of culture' and are expected to intervene even in domestic disputes.5.2 Project start up and descriptionAfter years of disseminating HIV and AIDS informationthrough its partners in the region it became apparentto SAfAIDS that information alone was not going tobe the magic bullet for behaviour change and thusreduction in HIV transmission. In the absence of creativenew thinking about how to respond to HIV in Africa,the continent would have to prepare itself for evenmore deaths. The high levels of literacy and awarenessin Zimbabwe had done nothing to reduce genderdisparity and the marginalisation of women which arecentral to fuelling HIV. Aware that gender and maledominance are closely linked to people's culture, itwas crucial that any new thinking about respondingto HIV needed to focus on addressing culture andtraditions that negatively influence the lives of womenin the African context. A two-country study undertakenby SAfAIDS in 2005 in Namibia and Mozambique onCulture, Gender and HIV confirmed the strong linkagesthat exist between these three areas and how theyare mutually reinforcing. Failure to effectively addressculture, gender and HIV individually and togetherwould certainly lead to ineffective interventions to theAfrican HIV epidemic.Figure 3: Lois Chingandu, SAfAIDS ExecutiveDirector17