15 July 2005 "We have the power to reverse the trend in AIDS mortalities," explained Pinky Kondlo, Ubuntu's Counselling Coordinator as she spoke with the small staff at KwaZakhele Day Hospital. Antiretroviral (ARV) therapy is readily available for the first time in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, but local clinics and hospitals are suffering from major implementation bottlenecks. In March 2005, the impact of Ubuntu's health programme was acknowledged as a model for successful community-based HIV intervention and Ubuntu was appointed to a seat on our region's Steering Committee for ARV Rollout. Having spent the past six years building strong community relationships, Ubuntu's health team is strategically positioned to play a leadership role in developing an ARV treatment network.

Pinky continued, "most sexually-active people in our communities do not know their HIV status. The first-time many people living with HIV find out their status is when they have already progressed to AIDS or in the case of young women, in the prenatal clinic; others die without ever officially learning of their HIV status. We must get people to know their status and then into treatment. Ubuntu can work with the clinic to see more people tested and prepared for treatment."

Although Ubuntu is reaching over 40,000 vulnerable children through our HIV interventions we must rapidly scale up our programme and incorporate treatment literacy into our health services. We are partnering with the KwaZakhele Day Hospital and other area clinics to increase access to and uptake of voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) and ARV therapy and provide a comprehensive network of support for people living with HIV/AIDS. Over the next year, we will conduct pre and post-test counselling, develop VCT quality assurance tools for usage by lay counsellors, train lay counsellors in advanced pre and post test counselling, counsel individuals on risk reduction, workshop our communities on treatment readiness and adherence, provide comprehensive family case management services, and run support groups focusing on living positively with HIV.

Ubuntu President Jacob Lief further explains, "Our community needs access to treatment. The government needs partners to meet our communities' needs. This is a logical direction for Ubuntu - I am seeing a shift away from fatalism and denial as people begin to internalize hope about living with HIV as treatment becomes a reality. I think that will have everything to do with our ability to help people make health seeking choices as they learn their status and access treatment."

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