Grahamstown's largely disused train station is expected to come alive with music, drama and poetry this week following yesterday's arrival of the loveLife train, which will be in town until Sunday.
Grahamstown's largely disused train station is expected to come alive with music, drama and poetry this week following yesterday's arrival of the loveLife train, which will be in town until Sunday.
The loveTrain, an HIV/Aids prevention campaign by loveLife South Africa, rolled into the Eastern Cape in December last year, spreading its message in Queenstown (December 13-18), Stutterheim (January 9-15) and Cradock (January 16-22).
Grahamstown is the loveTrain's last stop in the province. In each of the destinations – as will be the case in Grahamstown – the campaign team spent a week running workshops for young people on sexual health and their legal rights and choices.
The last day is devoted to a youth festival, often featuring friendly soccer and netball matches. The prevalence of HIV and the lack of access to information sexual health for people who live in remote rural areas are some of the problems facing this country, and loveLife's loveTrain aims to overcome these hurdles.
LoveLife South Africa, a not-for-profit organisation that promotes Aids-free living among South African teenagers, focuses specifically on youth development and behaviour. Modibedi Mokoena, one of two loveLife facilitators travelling around the country with the project, said, "The intention of this campaign is to expose young people to loveLife, so they can use the services we provide."
He said: "The response so far has been great." Mokoena said the distance between where the campaign team set up home – the local train station in each destination – and where participants lived played a big role in determining how many people turned up.
"If the train station is far from the community, like in Cradock right now, we get about 60 to 70 people a day," said Mokoena. "In the previous town, where we were closer to the community, 100 to 200 young people came every day." The project has visited five provinces so far.
