Work update

I haven't written much about my new job on this thing, so I should probably give you a bit of an update.

The placement itself is by no means perfect, but I'm being exposed to more interesting stuff and it's more flexible.

So I work for The HIV/AIDS and the Media Project , which is run out of the School of Journalism at the University of the Witwatersrand in Braamfontein, Johannesburg. If you click on the link, you can learn more about what the project does generally. My job is mostly as an administrative assistant, helping the project coordinator, Kylie, with the project's daily operations. Sometimes that means writing press releases or contacting local media, other times it means dealing with caterers and putting up posters.

I'm also supposed to monitor the print media for HIV/AIDS coverage and then blog about it, but I haven't been able to do very much of that because we've been busy getting ready for a couple of big events. I've written one blog so far, and you can read it here.

I have a few more blogs almost ready to go, but, like I said, we've been so busy with other stuff that I haven't been able to get them refined and then uploaded.

Seems like a good time to segue into talking about the project's upcoming events.

Tomorrow we will be hosting a large-scale discussion forum entitled "Democratising Science: Science reporting and HIV-prevention trials," which is the event that has been tying up most of our time since I arrived at the project.

The forum aims to open discussion on the reporting of clinical trials for HIV-prevention technologies, with a particular focus on microbicide trials. The forum's participants include researchers currently involved in microbicide trials, HIV-vaccine researchers, health journalists, HIV/AIDS activists, academics and people living with HIV. To read a press release for the forum, go here.

And we will be streaming the forum LIVE, tomorrow at 10 a.m. EST, HERE. I've been told that you'll see a link to the stream somewhere on the site - and you'll need Winamp to listen.

If you've never heard of microbicides as an HIV-prevention technology, I'm sure you can wiki it. In short, it is a cream or gel that can be applied to the vagina to protect a woman against sexually transmitted infections. Currently, an effective microbicide has not been developed, but several clinical trials are in advanced stages. If an effective one is developed, it has the potential to dramatically reduce infection rates among women, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, by allowing them to protect themselves against HIV infection without requiring male assent--potentially life-saving for women who are unable to negotiate safer sex with their partner.

The following day, Friday, we'll be hosting a much smaller seminar talk to showcase the work of some of the project's current fellows, Suzanne Leclerc-Madlala, Mike Saneka and Sabelo Zondo. Their seminar is entitled "Can abstinence kill you?" and it looks into issues of morality, infidelity and the media. You can get a taste of their subject matter here. But we're not streaming that one, so that taste will have to suffice.

After this rather hectic week, I'll be heading out of Jo'burg for a few weeks, mixing some business with some pleasure. Next Tuesday I'll be traveling with my supervisor, Kylie - and her husband and two-year-old child - to Durban to see Suzanne and co. present some more of their findings at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. We may stop for a day or two around Drakensberg, but we're not sure yet. After staying in Durban for a few days, I'll be heading to Port Elizabeth and then after another few days I'll head to Cape Town for a week. In each city I'll be interviewing local HIV/AIDS workers, caregivers, activists, as well as people living with HIV, to ask them what they think of local coverage of HIV/AIDS issues. When I get back to Jo'burg I'll write some kind of report about it and use any recurring themes to make key suggestions for the direction of the project.

So that's my job, pretty much. I'm mostly an administrative and logistical assistant, but there are obviously outlets for more challenging work. And Kylie is wonderful, so I'm very happy.

I think that's a pretty good update. If you have any other questions about my work, you can ask them in the comments section of this post, or just e-mail me.

BK!