Disability blindness Indaba tackles HIV and AIDS head-on

Disabled people are affected by HIV and AIDS. More than 5 million people are infected with HIV in South Africa; the infection rate is taking its toll among the disabled community.

Today, 1000 blind people participated at the Blindness Indaba which was held at Itereleng Workshop for the blind in Ga-Rankuwa to celebrate 10 years of commitment in the fight against AIDS. All participants later joined in the Voluntary Confidential Counselling and Testing (VCCT) services provided by the department of health.

“Disabled people are not reached by HIV and AIDS prevention, treatment and care programmes. Prevention messages are limited to print and broadcast which are not accessible to blind people. As a sector faced with many challenges, we took it upon ourselves to mobilise our community to join in the fight against HIV and AIDS”, said the representative of the disability sector in the South African National AIDS Council (SANAC), Hendrietta Bogopane - Zulu.

Since the Partnership Against AIDS declaration launch by the then Deputy President Thabo Mbeki in 1998, the disability sector has responded to the call and mobilised disabled people to take up the challenge. The blind sector lobbied for support from government for resources to be allocated to the disability sector to plan for a response to HIV and AIDS.

Blind people's reliance on the use of touch, puts them in a vulnerable position and the inability to read make HIV educational information inaccessible as most material is in print. They rely on assistance to access HIV prevention and treatment services which can be limiting.

“The workshop deliberated on some of the challenges such as correct condom use, condom awareness training and lack of accessible communication material in Braille. Thus far, the sector has conducted HIV prevention workshops that concentrated on visually impaired peer councillors and educators.

“Through Khomanani, information education and communication material (IEC), Braille is available and we have developed and distributed audio cassettes with key HIV messages”, continues Bogopane-Zulu.

The blind sector, through participation in SANAC, has ensured that disability is recognised as a vulnerability to HIV and AIDS as articulated in the current National HIV, AIDS and STI strategic plan.

Issued on behalf of the Disability Sector by Khomanani