Sunday Times (Johannesburg) - July 28, 2007
Claire Keeton

Godfrey Mokate, chief executive of the National Development Agency (NDA), has enthusiastically joined the Each One Reach Five testing campaign to stop HIV spreading, saying it reminds him of mass campaigns to end apartheid.

A veteran activist, Mokate said : "It sounds similar to one of the most successful campaigns during the anti-apartheid struggle in the 1980s.

"I used to belong to the trade union movement and we believed very much in the 'Each One Teach One' campaign.

"This also makes me think of one of the big campaigns of the UDF to collect one million signatures."

The 50-year-old Mokate said : "I see the power of campaigns - where each person recruits others to join - as enormous."

Volunteers who join the Each One Reach Five campaign not only pledge to find out their own HIV status, but also commit to find five more people to do the same.

The campaign - championed by Graca Machel - aims to have attracted one million supporters by World Aids Day on 1 December this year.

Machel invited Bishop Malusi Mpumlwana of the Ethiopian Episcopal Church to join the campaign. Mpumlwana, who chairs the board of the NDA, recruited Mokate.

Mokate, who has been married to Mamsy Mokate for 10 years, says he decided the best place to start promoting HIV testing was in his own family.

He said when he spoke to his children about HIV/Aids, his 10-year-old son Gopolang seemed the most concerned . "Gopolang is the last one of my four children and he showed the most interest. He was asking so many questions, about condoms in the airport toilets and about how doing an HIV test could prevent the illness.

"He does not know about HIV from school but mostly through watching films and scenes of HIV/Aids with me on television, and asking questions."

Mokate said his three daughters - 23, 18 and 17 years old - had not yet decided to join the campaign but he hoped to convince them of its importance.

He said he lost a sister in her late 40s to the disease. "At the time we did not know much but she got terribly sick quickly and passed away. After this we discovered it was Aids."

Mokate said after approaching his family, he moved to his workplace.

"I announced at the executive committee meeting and to my staff that I would be joining this campaign and spoke about why I wanted to do it. Immediately I had five volunteers and I think most are still thinking about it."

He said a couple of people within the organisation had been infected with HIV and that the experiences affected everybody there.

Mokate said the NDA was exploring the best way to have HIV testing available to all staff. The Zuzimpilo Medical Centre in downtown Johannesburg, where Mokate took his test, offers a professional service to workplaces at a subsidised cost.

Mokate said he supported widespread testing after seeing the toll that HIV takes on the poor communities with which the agency partners.

Before joining the NDA , he worked full time for the Department of Provincial and Local Government and prior to that for the Department of Public Service.

Mokate's commitment to community development goes way back to 1976. From Naledi, in Soweto, he was involved in unions, black consciousness, and youth and student movements at that time.

The NDA funds development projects in poor communities and Mokate has specialised in development studies.

He said: "We have found that our projects are affected by HIV. Now 16% of development funding, which is intended for economic projects, is going into home-based care, driven by the need."

His five volunteers are: NDA finance manager, Pat Hadebe; grant manager Nkhensani Mthembi; company secretary Dave Wilcox; organisation development manager Patrick Zikalala; and Ivan Samdaan, who left the NDA to lecture at Fort Hare University.

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