Sunday Times (Johannesburg) - September 7, 2003

How can we tell how effective loveLife has been?

The only indicator must be a significant reduction in HIV. But that's a five-year time frame at least.

You're three years into that?

Right. So we use intermediary indicators to give us an idea: is there evidence that young people's behaviour is changing?

Is there?

Yes.

How do you know this is a result of loveLife programmes?

We don't, and we wouldn't claim it is. What we can say is that what we're doing is not making the situation worse.

By creating a desire for consumer goods don't your ads draw young women to men who will buy them these things in return for sex?

The reality is that young South Africans are exposed to a consumerist youth culture. loveLife addresses that reality. We are competing with Nike etcetera for the head space of young people. That's where young people are at. And to pretend that is not the case, that our young people are mothballed away from these influences, is just not correct.

How does getting schoolchildren at loveLife seminars to sing and chant brand names change their sexual behaviour?

We don't get them to chant it.

I'm told loveLife youth leaders do, and I struggle to see what this has to do with changing sexual behaviour.

So do I, so do I. But let's understand these are young people. This is an environment of young people's lives and they're talking about brands. Does this mean that loveLife encourages them to think or talk about brands? No, it doesn't. We walk a fine line between being cognisant of where young people are at, and trying to enable them to negotiate a future that is about being free of HIV and about adopting a positive lifestyle.

Is sexual behaviour about making a lifestyle choice?

I can tell you what it's not about. It's not about more information. It's about creating a movement for change among young people in South Africa.

Isn't it about exposing them to the effects of Aids?

Do you think most of them do not have brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers dying of Aids?

But your ads encourage people to talk about sex, not about Aids.

What we try to get young people to think about are the main drivers of high-risk behaviour such as coercion, peer pressure, promises of money and low self-esteem.

The HIV infection rate has dropped in Uganda without the help of loveLife. Can you explain?

Nobody can say exactly why it's dropped there. One thing that appears to have been critical was people beginning to talk about sex.

Above all about Aids, according to research.

I'm not going to dispute that. A lot of things contributed, but there's no way you can demonstrate direct cause and effect.

Shouldn't you be playing more on the fear factor?

Then we'd feed directly into the sense of fatalism and pessimism young people experience in South Africa.

Wouldn't you be scaring them into not being promiscuous?

There are virtually no examples of fear-driven campaigns that have achieved this type of behaviour change.

After three years of loveLife the stigma of Aids is as strong as ever. Is this an indictment of your campaign?

It's an indictment on all of us. It's also indicative of the tremendous difficulty of behaviour change. This is not a short-term recipe that is going to bring about change.

Shouldn't you be doing more to tackle the stigma around Aids?

Yes, and the announcement of the roll-out of antiretrovirals provides us with a fantastic opportunity. Now there's an incentive for young people to know their status because now there is hope for them.

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