on Treatment Action Campaign and Social Mobilisation

http://www.tac.org.za/documents/et20.pdf

The above document is Equal Treatment (sorry that I fail at html and cannot link it for you), the monthly magazine/newsletter of the Treatment Action Campaign, the HIV/AIDS rights advocacy group for which I'm working. If you're interested, find the one-page interview on Mandla Majola, the District Co-ordinator for TAC Khayelitsha. Mandla is an awesome man; he's the supervisor in the office.

How can I describe TAC K|litsha? I don't know whether I can, but I'll try. For one thing, the office is crazy, a blur of people. All but two of the people in office are volunteers (Mandla prefers to call them 'comrades' or 'activists'), and many of them (a majority?) are HIV positive. So many things are run out of our office: PWA support groups, peer education programs, youth programs, condom and literature distribution campaigns, a leadership development programme, and plans for various events. TAC, at list in the K|litsha branch, is about much more than equal access to ARVs, AZT and other drug therapies. This upcoming Friday, we're holding a march in Khayelitsha concerning gender violence (the statistics concerning rape are awful, particularly in the 'informal housing' sections of the township).

Also, last friday, we demonstrated at the Khayelitsha Magistrate Court, as the perpetrators of the rape and murder of a TAC activist (incidently, in my section of Harare) were in court.

There's a sense of dynamic that I don't think I'll ever be able to put words to. TAC is very grassroots...people have formed quite a community around their actions. TAC is social activism at its most passionate.

Wild. That's my story.