On Stages and Screens, AIDS Educators Reach South Africa's Youths

If anything can stop the AIDS epidemic in South Africa, it will have to be the teenagers. But what South Africa calls "the ABC message" -- Abstain/Be Faithful/Condomize -- arrived long after the epidemic had taken hold. New education initiatives, like the Love Life education outreach and the "Soul City" soap opera, are trying to find livelier ways to deliver the message.

In Nomathiya Technical School, deep in rural KwaZulu/Natal Province, there is no running water, much less a working VCR. But the school's annual play, written by 29-year-old drama teacher Zola Mncwango, is about AIDS. In it, the people of an imaginary village tell their king they are sick of sharing their food with dying people. The king blames witchcraft and decrees that everyone with HIV must be killed. A horrified visiting health worker begs him to change his mind. The king lets her give a health lecture. Afterward, the young person who first suggested the killings says that she has since been raped by four men and is HIV-positive. Though witchcraft and gang rape may seem odd subjects for school theater, the play took first prize in a regional competition.

Twenty-five percent of the nation tunes in to "Soul City," a soap opera broadcast from Johannesburg. One character is a 15-year-old whose friends have warned him he will go mad if he doesn't have sex. One episode explored the problem of boys who think that because they pay for dates they are entitled to sex with their girlfriends. The show's messages reach a wider audience through radio broadcasts in nine languages and a comic book inserted in local papers.

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