Project Objectives

The main objectives for the project are:

• To increase HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention among farm workers and farm owners.
• To train farm workers on each farm to become peer educators and care givers for people suffering from HIV/AIDS.
• To lobby and advocate for the establishment of health facilities to improve voluntary counselling and testing among farm workers.
• To raise awareness among farm workers and farmers of the rights of HIV positive people and encourage farmers to introduce HIV/AIDS policies on their farms.

Main Activities

• Develop an awareness raising schedule targeting farm workers and farmers association. Women and migrant labourers will be the target.
• Organise information dissemination workshops.
• Identify organisations that work in the field of HIV/AIDS for continuation purposes.
• Organise boxes of condoms to be placed in each and every farm shop and tavern. Each farmer will also be provided with a box.
• Train few literate farm workers to become peer educators and care givers
• Utilise structures that are available to disseminate information such as the eviction response forum.
• To lobby and advocate for health facilities to be provided in different farming municipalities.
• Encourage farm workers to go for voluntary counselling and testing for HIV virus.
• Design a programme to educate farmers and farm workers about the rights of an HIV positive worker.
• Run workshops on the rights of farm workers as contained in the constitution especially the rights of a sick worker.
• Address local farmer's association meetings about the importance of having HIV/AIDS policies.
• Lobby and advocate for municipalities to provide support to people who are sick from AIDS on farms.

Target Group

The beneficiaries of the project will be all people who are residing on farms. This will include farmers, farm workers and farm residents. Particular attention will be given to women and migrant farm dwellers. The health workers at the municipal level will be assisted to reach out to farm dwellers and conscientise them about the extent of the problem. The direct work will benefit mainly farms that are situated close to the border and the informal settlements and farms around Gauteng since many foreign immigrants are found in these areas.

Involvement of Beneficiary Communities

At community level Nkuzi assists farm dwellers to understand and exercise their rights and encourages them to play direct role in reporting cases of human rights abuse. Using this as a foundation Nkuzi will be able to introduce the HIV/AIDS programme relating it to the rights in the workplace. At an area level Nkuzi believes it is essential to involve democratically elected local government and engage organizations of farmers and farm workers on issues that are a major concern to them. These are mainly farmers unions and labour unions that represent farmers and farm workers committees or forums that have been created in different areas to assist in defending farm workers rights. The local traditional healers shall also be involved since they are the first contact between a person who is sick and a health practitioner.