Fertility

Current South African issues of poverty, HIV/AIDS & youth. Seminar proceedings

This report presents the findings of the Behavioural Risks and HIV Sero-Status Survey (BSS) for the Central Serowe Sub-district and Kweneng District in Botswana. The purpose of the survey was to determine the knowledge, attitudes, sexual behaviours, practices, prevention, care and support issues concerning HIV/AIDS among the population in the Central Serowe Sub-district and Kweneng District. Specifically, the survey quantified HIV prevalence, sexual risk behaviours and other practices among adults and children.

Many of the goals of South Africas new democracy depend on the production of professionals who have not only the knowledge and skills to make our country globally competitive, but also a commitment to working and living here. Despite numerous reforms, the South African health system, ten years into democracy, remains divided: first world private care that ranks with middle income countries internationally at the one end, and at the other extreme, in the rural public sector in particular, conditions that are superior only to the poorest of African countries. Much work has been done to change medical school curricula in line with the primary health-care focus of government policy, and international trends towards problem-based learning. The student profile in medical schools is now not only more representative of the demographics of South Africa, but also reveals a significant increase in female students. Whether these students will stay in the country after graduating, and serve where they are needed most, remains to be seen.

In 2002, the Human Sciences Research Council was commissioned by the WK Kellogg Foundation to develop and implement a five-year intervention project focusing on orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) in southern Africa. In collaboration with several partner organizations, the project currently focuses on how children, families and communities in Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe are coping with the impact of HIV/AIDS. The aim of the project is to develop models of best practise so as to enhance and improve support structures for OVC in the southern African region as a whole.

Connected lives: Families, households, health and care in contemporary South Africa, illustrates the changing constitution and the variability of households, fluid understandings of family, and the impact of these in the context of life changes and health problems.