FIGHTING HIV/AIDS IN TANZANIA

YUMIMI PANG, 19th February 2009 @ 10:46

http://www.dailynews.co.tz

Mention the Swahili word “Fataki” and good-natured giggles will fill the room. Just one year ago in Tanzania, “Fataki” meant no more than a surname and explosives or fireworks. Now thanks to a creative radio campaign, Fataki is a catchword used to ridicule older men who seek sex with younger girls.

By ridiculing cross-generational sex, the campaign uses a fresh approach to HIV/AIDS prevention.
In one memorable radio spot, Fataki takes a girl to a restaurant for chicken and chips. The waitress sees the pair and calls the girl aside, gives her a bag of chicken and chips and tells her to leave through a back door. Fataki still has to pay for the meal, but he does not get the girl.The Fataki campaign has a scope beyond schoolgirls, and the fact is that school dropout rates due to pregnancy are rising at an alarming rate.

According to statistics released by the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training in 2007, 4,362 primary school students dropped out due to pregnancy, compared to 2,550 in 2003.In secondary schools, the increase was even more dramatic with 3,965 pregnancy dropouts in 2007 compared to 668 in 2003.In Tanzania pregnant schoolgirls are expelled from school. “Girls are impregnated by people of not their age group – not only school girls, also young girls out of school. We wanted to pursue that angle.

The prevalence of HIV is high, so the possibility of transmission of HIV is also high to young girls if this continues,” said Ng’wanansabi, Deputy Chief of Strategic Radio Communication for Development (STRADCOM), a USAID initiative headed by Johns Hopkins University – Centre for Communications Programmes.The national prevalence of HIV/AIDS in adults is 6.5 per cent, a figure that makes Tanzania one of the most affected countries in the world. The aggressive radio campaign was piloted for three months in the Morogoro region with eight radio spots a day on three stations.

It was imperative to stigmatize Fataki behaviour, which in Tanzania, had been somewhat tolerated.
“The first step was to find a common word to describe a man who preyed on younger girls,” Stradcom’s researcher revealed. When asked what a 50-year-old man who always tries to seduce younger women is called, responses varied including rapist, murderer, and sly person. Fataki, as yet, had not been introduced into the lexicon.

“We decided on Fataki, meaning explosion; you are playing with dynamite,” said Ng’wanansabi.
Next the Fataki character was created, and banners were made to put a cartoonlike ace to Fataki to supplement the radio spots. With technical support from Media for Development International – Tanzania (MFDI-TZ), Fataki was created. At first, he was a rich guy with jewellery and a fancy car.

“It seems there were some comments that we don’t have to make him look like a villain. He has to look normal, he doesn’t have to be a rich guy, just any Tanzanian guy who has some money to buy love,” said Paulo Ndunguru, who helped create Fataki’s image for the banners. The Fataki project was unique because STRADCOM researched details about the campaign’s impact. After four weeks of the campaign, 44 per cent of people polled knew what a Fataki was.

While between 79 per cent and 94 per cent of respondents said that sex between a young woman and much older man who is not her husband is wrong throughout the campaign, Stradcom research revealed that their campaign empowered more people to act against transgenerational sex. “There are social and economic consequences of cross-generational sex,” says Ng’wanansabi.In November 2008, the Fataki campaign was launched nationwide. The radio spots, which use humour and clever storytelling to ridicule Fataki behaviour, have been well received across Tanzania.

The HIV/AIDS message is mentioned in a subtle way. STRADCOM project leaders realized that after years of almost daily talkabout HIV/AIDS, explicit messages often fell on deaf ears.The campaign is making headway in opening discourse about sex and HIV/AIDS in an African culture that typically shies away from such topics. “It’s now in the vocabulary,” said Abubakar Msemo, Communications Manager with STRADCOM. “It’s becoming part and parcel of today’s modern speech, discussion. It seems people are taking people who are Fatakis as not positive and they do not want to associate with them.”

The ads have proven so popular that Stradcom began fielding calls from radio stations asking to play the Fataki ads moreoften since listeners were calling in to request ads, much like they would request their favourite song. “That was interesting. They said, ‘Play chicken and chips.’ Of course we let them play,” said Msemo.