“This sex is a complicated thing” – Cultural factors in the history of HIV/AIDS training content, methodology, and organisational issues, Western Cape, South Africa, 1989-2004

Stephen van Houten

Healthcare Corporation of St John's, Canada

One of the major challenges that South African HIV/AIDS training organisations faced between 1989 and 2004 was the incorporation of relevant cultural factors into their training content and methodology. 

This paper provides an historical examination of the cultural factors underlying the delivery of HIV/AIDS training to health care workers in this period. Cultural factors are examined with reference to the way in which health care workers and trainers understood and discussed the origin and transmission of HIV, the treatment of HIV-positive persons, and the support of caretakers of AIDS orphans. 

Also, this paper examines the purported reluctance of Africans to discuss sex, the training of first language trainers, and male circumcision. Finally, this paper examines the ways in which training organisations and health care workers managed these cultural factors historically.