An improved support program for Free State educators affected by the HIV

Abstract

The main focus of this study was on making recommendations towards the refinement of REds that should increase its effectiveness in supporting educators affected by the HIV and AIDS pandemic towards coping resiliently with the challenges of the pandemic. The educators are affected by_ learners, colleagues, family members who are HIV positive or dying from AIDS-related illnesses, or teaching orphans and vulnerable learners made by HIV/AIDS pandemic. To achieve this aim, I followed a pm-experimental pre-test-post-test design. Within this design, I used qualitative methods of data collection, to comment on how successful REds was in encouraging participant resilience and to comment on how REds could be refined. Ten affected educators volunteered to take part in this study, being three males and seven females. Their ages ranged from 35-56 and they were all primary school educators. All the participants came from one school in the Eastern Free State province (Thabo Mofutsanyana district). REds was implemented in Thabo Mofutsanyana district because this is where I live and work and the school is accessible to me. The participants were all esothospeaking and adhered to Sesotho culture. They all taught AIDS orphans and vulnerable children. My findings from this study documented that participants seem to have benefitted from their participation in REds. In general the participants reported more resilient management of the challenges brought in by the HIV/AIDS disaster and although this cannot be finally linked to their participation in REds, participants in general they made such a link. REds need to be refined witl1 regard to content, language and activities that will do more to encourage assertiveness.