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Mantombi Nala-Preusker, a primary school principal
in KwaZulu-Natal province, is training parents to work
as HIV awareness educators among other parents throughout
the region. Jabulisle Tugwana is working within the
prison system in Johannesburg to reach juvenile
offenders with an innovative, media-based HIV
prevention campaign. Based in Soweto, Nwabisa Jama
will be helping adolescent girls to develop more
gender-equitable relationships. And Mmapho Gogela plans
to address the need for boys in the Eastern Cape
Province to learn principles of gender justice before
they begin their first relationships.
These are just four of the twenty emerging leaders
in HIV prevention whom the HIV Center has brought to
New York for intensive training over the past year,
each as part of the first two cohorts of the MAC AIDS
Leadership Initiative at Columbia University and UCLA.
The first cohort was identified through a nationwide
search for emerging leaders with the vision and determination to employ
new strategies in the struggle against HIV in South
Africa. They were trained in February and March in New
York, and then returned to South Africa. Currently, they are implementing
the HIV prevention plans they developed in New York with
the help of an additional ten months of seed funding,
mentoring, and support. All of the HIV prevention plans are
connected to the theme of gender inequality, one of the
major engines of the AIDS epidemic in South Africa,
which has more people living with HIV than any other
country in the world. (To view profiles of Cohort 1,
click here.)
 Cohort 1, who were at the HIV
Center in February and March 2008, are now
implementing their prevention plans in South Africa
From September through November 2008, the HIV Center
enrolled eight new fellows after a second nationwide
search. Following two weeks of initial
training in Johannesburg, the members of Cohort II
arrived in New York on October 1 for six weeks of
individualized mentoring, classroom presentations and
discussion, community site visits, and participation in
HIV Center events and activities. (For profiles of the
members of Cohort 2,
click here.)
“This program is breaking new
ground in its focus on leadership in HIV prevention,”
notes HIV Center Director
Anke A. Ehrhardt, Ph.D.,
who is also the program’s Principal Investigator.
“Leadership initiatives are usually based in government
or business, but our position as a large HIV research institution
allows us to pass along the lessons of prevention
science to those who will be leading the battle in the
years ahead. We are undertaking this both by working
with individuals and, through them, by the
cultivation a new network of educators, managers,
care providers, policy makers, and other innovators.”
Fellow Nobuntu Matinise, center, with Program
Faculty Member
Linda Loffredo (left) and Program Director Dr. Diane
di Mauro
(right) at the HIV Center's 20th anniversary event.
The Leadership Initiative was
launched by the MAC AIDS Fund
in collaboration
with Drs. Ehrhardt and Thomas J. Coates, the Director of the
UCLA Program in Global Health
and the program's Co-Principal Investigator. |
The members of Cohort 2 arrived at JFK Airport,
to begin
their six-week program in October and
November 2008 at the HIV
Center. They were greeted by the Program's Community
Liaison Dr.
Joyce Hunter (right of sign) and by Associate
Program Director Dr.
Raymond Smith.
The MAC AIDS Fund, established by
MAC Cosmetics, has provided over $128 million to support
men, women, and children affected by HIV/AIDS globally,
drawing on proceeds of worldwide sales of its VIVA GLAM
lipstick.
"The MAC AIDS Fund is a remarkable example of how the
private sector can contribute to the public good," noted
Dr. Ehrhardt. "By dedicating all proceeds from their
Viva Glam lipstick, MAC Cosmetics -- through the MAC
AIDS Fund -- is making a difference every day in the
lives of people with HIV/AIDS as well as women, young
people, and others who are at high risk of HIV
infection."
The partnership with the HIV Center is a logical one,
given the Center’s longstanding work in South Africa and
its wide-ranging experience with HIV prevention in the
context of gender. Through lectures, discussions, and
interactive exercises, HIV Center investigators share their expertise on such themes as
women-controlled prevention methods, communication
skills and sexual negotiation, couple- and family-based
interventions, and the needs of adolescents. Fellows
are also being introduced to a wide range of their
grassroots counterparts in New York through a series of
meetings and site visits to community-based
organizations.
The Leadership Initiative is led
programmatically by
Diane di Mauro, Ph.D.
who succeeded Shari Dworkin, Ph.D. as Program
Director in
summer 2008. At Columbia, the
Center for New Media Teaching and Learning
(CCNMTL)
has also developed a comprehensive program website to
help the Fellows remain linked to the program, and to
one another, after their departure from New York.
Several days of leadership training were also provided
by the Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project
(CHAMP). Crucial "on-the-ground" support is
offered by the UCLA team,
particularly through its South Africa-based operations.
The members of
Cohort 2 graduated in November 2008
from the New York portion of the training. Throughout their year-long
engagement with the Leadership Initiative, the Fellows
are also working with program mentors to refine and
develop their prevention plans. Members of both cohorts
are working throughout South Africa, focusing on
such populations as school children, adolescents, HIV
counselors, care providers, workers, and intimate
partners.
Their plans encompass programs to reduce
sexual coercion within couples, help businesses address
HIV and prevent discrimination, and promote
communication and healthy relationships among
adolescents. Through the website and other initiatives,
the first two cohorts will continue to share their experiences and
to forge a new network of prevention leaders throughout the nation hit harder than any
other by the AIDS epidemic.
To learn more about the MAC AIDS
Leadership Initiative,
click here.
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