HIV

Running a junior farmer field and life school - Empowering orphans and vulnerable children

carol — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 03:34:20 -0600

Getting started! : running a junior farmer field and life school, Empowering orphans and vulnerable children living in a world with HIV and AIDS

WIEGERS, Esther HILL, Catherine COLBERT,Patricia 2007

Country focus: Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe

In response to the growing number of children orphaned by AIDS, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the World Food Programme and other partners have implemented Junior Farmer Field and Life Schools in some African countries. These are designed to empower orphans and other vulnerable children aged 12 to 18 years who live in communities where HIV/AIDS has had a strong impact on food security.A JFFLS seeks to improve the livelihoods of vulnerable boys and girls and provide them with opportunities for the future, while minimizing the risk of adopting negative coping behaviours. To increase these children's self esteem and livelihood prospects, a JFFLS imparts agricultural knowledge and life skills to orphaned and other vulnerable girls and boys. The knowledge and skills not only empower the children economically, but also help them to become responsible citizens with positive values regarding gender and human rights. The JFFLS contribute to the MDGs of combating HIV/AIDS and improving the lives of children, particularly in rural areas.

Information Provided by Carol Lombard, Department of Social Development Population Website

KM & Social Challenges

Framing HIV as an information problem

storytelling — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 03:03:42 -0600

Peter Drucker defines knowledge as "Information that changes something or somebody-either by becoming grounds for actions or by making an individual (or an institution) capable of different or more effective action." This definition highlights both individual and corporate aspects of knowledge. KM models focus on what kinds of information move through a system, how the information moves and the relationship of information to processes of change within that system. A number of biomedical models have suggested that the HIV virus can change other information at the level of the DNA of a CD4 cell. In this way, it is suggested, the Virus uses corrupted immune system cells to create replicas of itself thus compromising the ability of the immune system to defend against opportunistic infections. Because of this, HIV itself can be framed as knowledge in that it has the ability to change other information. The primary consequences and sequella of HIV infection are experienced at many levels ranging from the HIV+ individual through the family, the community, the culture, the society, the labour market, the economy etc.

From an information system perspective, the human body is a complex organisation of information and therefore qualifies as a complex information system. The human body satisfies the definition in that it contains information at the level of each individual cell and in the immune, nervous and endocrine systems and the communication transactions between these systems – mediated by chemical messengers called polypeptides.

An information system can be data, information, exformation (information rejected as not being necessary for information processing), knowledge held in stories, skills, relationships, values, beliefs, behaviours (which can be seen as a form of information exchange), symbols, metaphors, narratives, social and economic transactions, as well as policies, procedures and protocols. All these phenomena, and much more besides, constitute a complex, living dynamic information system. The system itself is in a state of continuous change as a result of the feedback mechanisms between its mutually influencing parts.

Fireside Chat

Knowledge Sharing / Community of Practice Approach to HIV

storytelling — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 02:03:58 -0600

A simple KM approach focuses on how knowledge is shared in a system: Within any environment, we expect to find people who are being infected with HIV while there are those who are not being infected. A KM framework might ask the following questions:

How are those not getting infected by the disease organising and synthesising their experience differently from those who are getting infected?
Do those not getting infected have access to different information, technologies, organising metaphors or skills in contrast to those who are getting infected?
Are they accessing different kinds of learning experiences by virtue of their role, status, gender, socioeconomic class, literacy level, access to technology, financial means, etc?
What are their skill sets with regards to preventing the spread of HIV?
How could these skills be transferred to those who do not have them?
What are the beliefs and stories that circulate around HIV?

The information gathered using the simple enquiry framework above can then be used to design processes and intervention programmes that provide feedback into the system or community, often through allegorical storytelling.

Oftentimes traditional healers and those taking the role of shaman or storytellers and elders have been found to be useful sources of understanding how communities frame issues. Oftentimes their descriptions of HIV/AIDS as having a 'spirit' and a 'story' is analogous to the idea of emergence and emergent property in systems theory. There have been some innovative and successful projects in Africa that have used puppetry, performance theatre , dilemma tales and ritual performance / edutainment to convey these complex ideas and share how-to via entertaining stories.

Memetics, Memeplexes, Culture and HIV

storytelling — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 01:36:02 -0600

Virology has provided our culture with many useful insights and the term 'viral' and the viral metaphor spring up in the form of computer viruses, viral marketing, memetics and memeplexes. Human beings are by nature metaphorical beings and understand complex concepts through metaphor and analogy. In other words, we understand something in terms of something else.

However, trying to understand a virus in terms of a virus throws the thinker into ever more greatly convoluted loops of logic. To think about HIV, what we need is a good metaphor for HIV - what is it 'like'? What organisms or systems do we know of that do the things HIV does? Could the emergent properties of billions of human beings transacting with each other be doing to our planet what HIV does to our bodies?

A particularly useful area for those working with HIV is the field of memetics and memplexes. The term meme (pronounced like dream) was coined by Biologist Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book "The Selfish Gene" As examples of memes, he suggested “tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches”.

Memes are habits, skills, songs, stories, or any other kind of information that is copied from person to person. Memes, like genes, are replicators. That is, they are information that is copied with variation and selection. Because only some of the variants survive, memes (and hence human cultures) evolve. Memes are copied by imitation, teaching and other methods, and they compete for space in our memories and for the chance to be copied again and agin. Large groups of memes that are copied and passed on together are called co-adapted meme complexes, or memeplexes.

The word “meme” is now found in the Oxford English Dictionary where it is defined “meme (mi:m), n. Biol. (shortened from mimeme ... that which is imitated, after GENE n.) “An element of a culture that may be considered to be passed on by non-genetic means, esp. imitation”.

According to memetics, our minds and cultures are designed by natural selection acting on memes, just as organisms are designed by natural selection acting on genes. A central question for memetics is therefore ‘why has this meme survived?’. Some succeed because they are genuinely useful to us, while others use a variety of tricks to get themselves copied. From the point of view of the “selfish memes” all that matters is replication, regardless of the effect on either us or our genes.

Some memes are almost entirely exploitative, or viral, in nature (chain letters and e-mail viruses). These consist of a “copy-me” instruction backed up with threats and promises. Religions have a similar structure and this is why Dawkins refers to them as "viruses of the mind" Many religions threaten hell and damnation, promise heaven or salvation, and insist that their followers pass on their beliefs to others. This ensures the survival of the memeplex. Other viral memes include alternative therapies, new age fads and cults, children’s games, urban legends and popular songs, all of which can spread like infections.

At the other end of the spectrum memes survive because of their value to us. The most valuable of memeplexes include all of the arts and sports, transport and communications systems, political and monetary systems, literature and science. Memetics has been used to provide new explanations of human evolution, including theories of altruism, the origins of language and consciousness, and the evolution of the human brain. The Internet can be seen as a vast realm of memes, growing rapidly by the process of memetic evolution and not under human control. The field of memetics is new and controversial, with many critics, and difficulties to be resolved.

Steve Banhegyi

Fireside Chat

Accessibility & utilisation of HIV and AIDS services among the visually impaired in Kenya-Alice Yungungu, Alice Songok et.al.

KMAadmin — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 01:58:00 -0600

By: Alice Yungungu, Alice Songok, Patrick Mulinge - MOI UNIVERSITY, KENYA

HIV and AIDS has had a devastating social and economic impact in Africa. The continent is losing a lot of resources in form of reduced work productivity, absenteeism from work, deaths and funeral expenses, replacements and training of new personnel. The situation regarding the disabled and HIV and AIDS in Africa is in need of more attention because they are more susceptible to contracting HIV and AIDS compared to their non-disabled peers.

Many programmes and campaigns to create awareness on how to prevent, manage and live positively with HIV and AIDS have been set up in Kenya by the government, international agencies, nongovernmental organizations, faith-based organizations and community based organizations. These programmes and campaigns however are rarely made accessible to the visually impaired persons for instance, information is not provided in accessible formats like Braille and large print, and they have limited or no knowledge of how to live with HIV and AIDS or how to care for others with the disease. It is also evident that there are cases of illiteracy among visually impaired persons particularly in rural settings. Lack of skills is also an impediment to the health practitioners in providing HIV and AIDS services to the visually impaired. As a result, support services are not modified to suit the needs of the visually impaired. Additionally, the infected persons receive little support from the community due to social stigmatization thus accelerating their immunity deficiency. In some circumstances the vulnerability of the visually impaired persons to HIV is exacerbated by traditional beliefs and myths which presume visually impaired persons to be at no risk of contracting HIV and as a result they are excluded from voluntary counseling, testing and treatment facilities.

This paper seeks to address the plight of the visually impaired persons in accessing and utilizing HIV and AIDS services in Kenya. Based on these challenges, recommendations will be made on the ways and means of making these services more accessible to the visually impaired persons. As a result it is expected that this will increase the degree of utilization of the available HIV and AIDS services by the visually impaired persons with the intent of eradicating the HIV and AIDS scourge in Africa.

The authors are post graduate students in Moi University, Kenya. The first author is a visually impaired person pursuing a doctorate studies.

KM & Social Challenges