Unsung KwaZulu-Natal heroes and heroines in South Africa: Catholic AIDS care activities during the 1990s
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Date
2014
Authors
Joshua, Stephen Muoki
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Faculty of the Humanities, University of the Free State
Abstract
The story of the Catholic response to HIV and AIDS in South Africa comprises of much more than the
condom controversy, the pastoral letters, the Southern Africa Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SACBC)
AIDS Office and the huge sums of money that funded numerous projects that were with that response
during the 2000s. The AIDS context in South Africa was quite different during the 1990s, especially in
the KwaZulu-Natal province which was clearly in the lead regarding infections and fatalities throughout
the period. The volatile political context leading to the 1994 first democratic elections in the country
had a devastating civil war effect on the province, dubbed “the township revolts”, which left 20 000
persons dead and many more internally displaced. Racial AIDS stigma, accompanied by widely
popularised myths, made care attempts in the region a deadly affair. Financial donors were hard to
come by. Yet, certain ordinary Catholic men and women braved the odds by moving into the margins of
the society to provide care to people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). Their heroic deeds, adventures
and narratives shed more light onto an otherwise overlooked period in the history of the AIDS epidemic
in South Africa. This article is based on an oral history study that consisted of some 22 in-depth
interviews with clerics, AIDS care workers and project leaders in KwaZulu-Natal. An archival study on
various Catholic archives, such as the SACBC Archives in Khanya House, Pretoria, the Archdiocese of
Durban Archives, as well as the St. Joseph’s Theological Institute Archives in Pietermaritzburg was also
conducted. This article is an attempt to use marginalised Catholic voices in the seven KwaZulu-Natal
dioceses to analyse and re-tell the story of Catholic AIDS care in South Africa during the 1990s.
Description
Keywords
HIV/AIDS, Heroes, Heroines, Southern Africa Catholic Bishops’ Conference, Care, KwaZulu-Natal
Citation
Joshua, S. M. (2014). Unsung KwaZulu-Natal heroes and heroines in South Africa: Catholic AIDS care activities during the 1990s. Journal for Contemporary History, 39(2), 155-176.