Background

UNASO in partnership with Uganda Health Communication Alliance organised an orientation workshop for media personnel on HIV&AIDS information and knowledge management. The activity was intended to involve 25 media personnel representing eight (8) regions, in a residential camp. The expactation of the workshop that was held in Ankrah Foundation Mukono on 27^th -28^th june was to.

Enhancing media coverage of HIV and AIDS issues that affect the national response
Minimising instances of misreporting
Making HIV&AIDS information newsworthy
Building the advocacy skills of media personnel
Agreeing on information delivery methods to media houses
Understanding of how media and AIDS service organizations operate.
Establishing a network of media practitioners who will sustain interest and provide regular coverage of HI&AIDS response

Introduction

Richard Baguma opened the workshop by welcoming the participants and handled the introductions session

Richard Mayanja briefly took participants through the objectives of the workshop. Mayanja mentioned that the media plays an important role in providing information to the public though its involvement the national response to HIV&AIDS is still minimal.

“We need to strengthen and engage the media to fully participate in the national HIV&AIDS response through improved interaction and information flow with other HIV&AIDS stakeholders in order to; enhance media coverage of HIV and AIDS issues that affect the national response, minimize instances of misreporting, make HIV&AIDS information newsworthy and build the advocacy skills of media personnel” Mr. Mayanja noted.

He stated the objectives are to identify areas of partnership between the media and other civil society actors in HIV and AIDS response, have mutual understanding of how civil society and media organizations operate and identify key issues in HIV response that require media attention.

Mr. Mayanja also said that by the end of the workshop participants should agree on information delivery methods to media houses, and understand how media and AIDS service organizations operate and establish a network of media practitioners who will sustain interest and provide regular coverage of HI&AIDS response.

Sessions

1. Use of proper non-stigmatizing language and correct terminology in HIV& AIDS Communication: Dr. Stephen Watiti

Dr. Stephen Watiti, who works with Mildmay gave a brief history of his life since he tested HIV+. He told the participant that he be a HIV activist because of his status and by the way he suffered from many illness among them TB and cancer. In his testimony, Watiti noted that people who are HIV+ do not want to hear about it.

What should journalists do to help the issue?

He advised journalists to have empathy when writing HIV stories, should not use stigmatizing language and should always use correct terminologies.

For example;

Use People living with HIV (PLHIV) when referring to positive people
Commercial sex workers instead of prostitutes
Men who have sex with men (MSM) instead of homosexuals
Intravenous drug users (IDU) for people who use drugs
Sex minorities for Lesbians, Gays, Transgender and Bisexuals (LGTB )

It has been found that 1% of HIV+ people acquire it through MSM. Dr. Watiti emphasized the case of some HIV+ people living in denial and wondered what can be done to them come out and accept that they need help. He revealed that over 500,000 PLHA’s CD4 count is bellow 500 where us the normal CD4 count should be between 500 and 1500. “The WHO policy is; anyone who’s CD4 count is below350 should automatically be put on ARVs where as out of 500,000 Ugandans who’s CD4 count is below 500 only 238,000 are on ARVS whose dose is about UGX 30,000, the remaining 362,000 do not get them and at risk.

He also encouraged journalist to use him as an example whenever they want to write positive issues about people living with HIV and AIDS.

Dr. Watiti noted that people who are on ARVs have up to 90% chances of not passing on HIV.

He explained about the new SAVE strategy to save lives.

S = Safe by using condoms (if it is not on it is not in). New slogan for the youth

A = Availability of condoms, ARVs and service providers

V = Voluntary testing

E = empowerment of women

Sarah Mawerere a journalist from UBC Radio wondered why service providers like Maldmay and TASO are dwindling when the number of HIV infections is increasing instead.

Dr. Watiti explained that Maldmay and TASO are only organizations that provide emergency interventions but it’s the responsibility of the Ministry of Health to provide treatment to Ugandans and the second point is that these two organizations are running out of funds to provide the services.

2. HIV and AIDS and Human Rights: Kabumba Busingye

Mr. Busingye noted that the constitution of Uganda do not give rights but makes one the rights he has all long.

He mentioned the fundamental rights and advised said that there is need for a balanced approach when handling the rights to HIV+ people.

He posed a question of who would employ a house worker who declares her/his sero status and if that person is denied opportunity to work, should she/ he seek legal redress?

3. Making HIV&AIDS information newsworthy – what kind of information do media houses need from CSOs: Tegulle Gawaya

Tegulle Gawaya a media expert and a talk show host on UBC TV stated that CSOs are always demanding and this is after they give out brown envelops to get their news broadcasted. He gave reasons why sometime news is not published.

“The problem begins from editorial room, how do you expect inexperienced editor to determine a good story?”

How do reporters know that the story will run on the first page?

He advised CSOs to be ready with the questions below before they call for a prèss conference.

What kind of information?
Which media houses should be invited?
What kind of journalists?
The sex of journalists (male or female)?

He stated that news worthiness is determined by one; the news value and the appreciation of the editor.

The news has value when it is;

Time: News means new. Good news has to be reported quickly
Timeliness: It happened recently
Proximity: It happened nearby, something happening near us has news value that something very far.
Impact: It must be affecting a lot of people
Prominences: Well known persons or organizations
Novelty: Something unusual or out-of-ordinary
Human interest: People always want read about people
Significance: The number of people affected by the story
The in house style agenda and ownership

He advised researchers to be broad in their research and it should have

Threshold
Frequency
Negativity
Unexpectedness
Unambiguity

How do you identify the audience?

Personalization: Once there are people in the story, it will definitely be read

Meaningfulness: Does it feel with the local context?

Reference to the elite nations

Reference to the elite persons

Way forward

Tegulle urged CSOs to concentrate on

Breakthrough in HIV research,
Trends in infection rate,
Key personalities,
Success stories,
Worst cases, and
Localizing HIV/ AIDS stories in the global domain

4. Declining financing to HIV response what is the way forward? By Bharam Namanya

Bharam Namanya, Executive Director UNASO, started by explaining that it has always been hard for the journalists to get stories from graphs and charts and therefore leading to poor reporting of research reports. He showed a graph that indicated the most affected sector as far as HIV infection is concerned.

The most hit sector is public administration followed by Hotel Industry. Real Estate and construction sectors showed least percentage of prevalence. His report also showed that education sector was the highly vulnerable followed by health and social sector.

He said all organizations dealing with HIV are majorly financed by external organization.

(Refer to the presentation)

Challanges

Bharam revealed that the cost of buying a dose of ARV in Uganda is 8 times more expensive than buying a dose of the same from outside the country and that donors have reduced their funding including the uncertain future has made the struggle for national HIV response to be complicated.

Where are the gaps?

He says that there is no mechanism for constant intervention

Some CSOs do not understand how media operates

Way Forward

Increase in advocacy: both media and CSOs have a duty to make sure that people who have no information should have access to it.
CSOs need to help media understand the top issues and give them more information sources
Journalists should be invited as participants rather than the observers
Journalists should be given time to research on their stories

5. HIV Prevention in Uganda: Challenges and way forward, by Leonard Okello

Leonard Okello, the Country Director of International AIDS Alliance started by explaining that 50% of the HIV⁺ couple in Uganda is discordant.

Challenges

“HIV infection is higher among married couple or people in long term relationships while there is a drop among the youth, with condom use being highly used. It is high majorly in middle class women, highly educated and professionals” Okello said .He also stated that 50% of HIV prevalence in the world is in East and Southern Africa where by if the mentioned region is put under control the AIDS scourge will be in a process of be wiped out.

“The study has established that the highly affected groups are sex workers and Fishing community. The study also indicates that the most affected region in Uganda is the Northern with 12% followed by central region” he noted. Okello sighted that cross generation sex and the reluctance of older men using condoms are some of the reasons that has caused the high prevalence of HIV in young women.

He stated that 75% of Uganda’s budget is for recurrent expenditure (salaries and allowances) and only 25% is for developmental activities.

He also said that Uganda HIV response is surviving on self experts. “Even Makerere University does not have a bachelor’s degree in HIV management”.

Hope

“Science has showed that if we work very hard we can get rid of AIDS because”:

Now only 30% of children born out of HIV positive mothers are positive
Safe male Circumcision can now reduce chances of infection by 50% to 70%
If positive people started medication in time they reduce the chances of passing the virus by 96%
If condom is used properly it reduces the chances of infection by 99%.

Solution

He said that there should be functional primary health. Outreach services like NAADS should integrate HIV information in their programme. There is need for massive mobilization on Issues related to HIV because most of the people who went into HIV response are circumstantial experts, they are not trained HIV scholars.

Sengas should be advised to incorporate HIV information in their communication to the young women who are almost getting married; there should be more research and skills development for the scientists.

6. Group Work

During the group work session, participants were divided into 4 groups and each group was tasked to brainstorm different question given to them by the moderator.

Group 4

If you were to plan for UHCA what could you plan and give them to implement regarding health reporting

The answers were;

Trainings (health and environment) and scholarship
Advocacy for better pay for the journalists
Organise competitions and awards for the best health journalists to motivate
UHCA should buy airtime/space in media houses to promote specific topics

Group 3

Where are the gaps in covering health?

Inaccessibility of information sources
Lack of funding from media houses
Health issues are not given priorities in some media houses
Hard terminologies are more often used by the researchers

Group 2

Challenges that hinder dialogues between media and CSOs

Donor ties/restriction
Negative of CSOs towards media
CSOs do not include media activities into their budget
Lack of professional PROs in some CSOs
Hard terminologies used.

Group1

Three practical feasible manageable solutions

What do you think should be done to strengthen dialogue between the media and AIDS service organization?

Journalists need to develop passion for health/ science reporting with specific interest in HIV/AIDS issues and also adopt its agenda in the newsrooms
There need to establish a network of sources from the CSOs and other organization
There is need for proactive of what the ASOs are doing or other health related issues in our communities.

Key Issues and Way forward

Key Issues and Way forward	Leading Parties
Need for a regular forum where CSOs can address journalists on key issues in HIV response that require media coverage.	UNASO UHCA
CSOs need to involve media personnel as full participants in HIV and AIDS activities.	UNASO UHCA
Communication Officers from ASOs need to be oriented on media relations and operations	UHCA UNASO
ASOs need to work with media related organisations e.g. UHCA, to push HIV & AIDS issues for media attention.	UNASO
There is need for a dialogue meeting where there is wider CSO representation to discuss media-CSO relationships.	UHCA UNASO
There is need for a dialogue meeting with editors in various media houses to make them appreciate that HIV and AIDS issues need to be on top of the agenda for media coverage.	UHCA UNASO
Undertake a TOT to constitute a team of trainers who will orient upcoming journalists on health reporting	UHCA
Establish a network of media practitioners who have the passion and interest to provide regular coverage of HI&AIDS issues	UHCA UNASO

Closing Remarks

In the closing remarks Bharam Namanya the ED of UNASO stated that there is need go beyond PRO and handle. He took the opportunity to thank UHCA by saying “If we can’t make a difference then why should we be remembered”

Sheila Coutinho, Technical Manager Agents of Civil Society Fund- a fund mechanism with donor funding for HIV/AID response.

She was impressed for two organizations (UHCA and UNASO) to get media perspective on SCOs. She also intimated that there should be organized approach of handling HIV/AIDS because to get CSF one has to go through a competitive bidding through a request for application.

In her speech, Ms Coutinho advised the journalists stop from looking outside and begin with looking at themselves first and should have passion for their work when reporting on HIV/AIDS by getting the facts right.

She also asked journalist to adopt changing status of HIV, by listening to the environment observe and report right issues. As journalists you must stay focused, do research before carrying out interview”. “Just work hard and the success will follow you because you have power to change things for the positive”

She however accepted that some organization do not have budgets for the media and advised the CSOs to make consortium with journalists.

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