Evaluation of the process and impact of the Soul City/De Beers HIV/AIDS community training partnership programme

In 2005, an estimated 5.5 million people were living with HIV in South Africa. The HIV&AIDS epidemic affects almost every facet of life, including the economy and workforce. The De Beers Diamond Mines HIV/AIDS Workplace Programme was launched in 2000, initially targeting employees and their immediate families, but the programme has since been extended to a few selected, targeted communities surrounding the diamond mines. The intention of the De Beers Community HIV/AIDS programme is, where possible, to extend what has already been implemented in the workplace into the communities, to facilitate the implementation of new programmes through partnerships, and to support the efforts of Government. The first major partnership announced as part of the De Beers Community HIV/AIDS Programme was with the Soul City Institute for Health and Development Communication. The intervention consists of the Soul City cascade model of training, using a training pack based on the Soul City television stories. Soul City trains master trainers in the partner non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and then the master trainers in turn train trainers in communities. The initial areas selected for the project were: Finch (Lime Acres) and Namaqualand in the Northern Cape Province; Venetia and The Oaks in Limpopo Province; and Cullinan in Gauteng Province. The overall approach to the process and impact evaluation consisted of four study components: interviews with key informants; an assessment of the work and activities of the master trainers working in the four NGO training partners; an assessment of the impact of the training programme on the community trainers; and an assessment of the impact of the training programme on the mining communities. A classical impact evaluation of the CTPP on mining communities was not possible since only a post-intervention assessment was done. Both the information obtained and entry into the mining areas was mediated by the master and/or the community trainers, and this might have introduced some bias. By its nature, the rapid evaluation represents a snapshot at a point in time. While useful information was obtained, these limitations must be borne in mind when reading the report.