Soul City Institutes (SCI) goal is to reduce the number of new HIV infections through social change communication and social mobilization for HIV prevention interventions. The first objective of the program is to ensure that the majority of South Africans are informed about HIV prevention particularly MMC, PMTCT and sexual HIV prevention. SCIs second objective is to empower children through the Soul Buddyz Club to not only have the knowledge but the ability to integrate that knowledge into their lives thus enabling them to become peer educators and a positive peer pressure in their school and communities. The third objective is to mobilise communities to support medical male circumcision and thus driving young men to the available services through community mobilisation using tools such as community radio and community dialogues. These objectives fit with the NSP prevention priorities. The NDOH is involved in the development of the SCI series and see drafts of scripts. The DBE (and provincial DOEs) are partners with SCI in the Soul Buddyz Club program and are increasingly becoming involved in funding this at a provincial level. SCI is a national program with Soul Buddyz Club in every education district, and the SCI media has national reach, reaching over 60% of the population. SCI has a clear monitoring process and aims to partially evaluate impact through the national communication survey (in partnership with JHESSA, and LoveLife). Other smaller studies are undertaken to gauge the impact of the on-the-ground interventions. A longitudinal study following up children who were in Soul Buddyz Club is planned. SCI has a multipronged funding strategy, with SAG, private and international donor funding.

In South Africa most men are not circumcised and if they are traditionally circumcised they are often not fully circumcised (and thus have no protection). As an HIV prevention intervention medical male circumcision requires a number of additional interventions in order to ensure it is effective. Firstly people have to know about MMC and young men have to present themselves to the appropriate services. Post circumcision they have to remain abstinent until the wound is completely healed and then they have to continue to have safer sex for the rest of their lives. The Soul City site-specific social mobilisation intervention and the Soul City series will provide education about MMC for the general public (both men and women) it will deal with the difference between medical and traditional circumcision and the need for safe healing and safer sex post circumcision. Through the activities of Television, Community Radio, Booklet distribution, holding of community training in HIV prevention and community dialogues a demand for MMC services will be generated thus assisting the SAG achieve their target of 5,6 million circumcisions by 2016.The MMC activities on the ground include training members of CBOs and NGOs to do social mobilization and community dialogues and are targeted at areas which have high volume facilities. The National Media will support these activities. The National television series will reach 6 million people per episode, the radio will reach 1 million people (more localised) and the MMC booklets will reach aroudnd 4 million people. In each identified community Soul City will organise and facilitate community dialogues focusing on MMC and HIV prevention in order to support MMC services and shift social norms relating to MMC. Print booklets will be distributed. Talk show hosts and community radio personalities will be trained to understand medical male circumcision issues and then will run talk shows and competitions in key areas identified by Soul City and PEPFAR partners in order to support services. (15 community radio stations each hosting 10 weekly talk shows). This activity is entirely PEPFAR funded.

SCIs intervention for Sexual HIV prevention is based a health promotion approach. Health Promotion Theory and Social Change Theory inform the interventions. This addresses determinants of health such as alcohol misuse, violence and gender inequality, and social change in the broad and community environments that facilitate individual change. Social Learning Theory: positive role-modeling, audience identification with characters and enhancing self-efficacy informs the media. SCI has has identified: encouraging critical debate and discussion; assisting with creating vision and hope; creating space for practicing behaviors and building communities of practice as critical for sustained change. SCI uses an entertainment education integrating researched messaging into entertainment mass-media programs to maximize learning and audiences. The intervention is the development, testing, production and flighting of a prime time television drama series dealing with sexual behavior aimed at youth 16-35 years old. Young women 15-25 are identified as a most at risk population thus the intervention will focus on young women of this age. Young men (15-35) are the target for medical male circumcision and they will be targeted with this messaging, and gender messaging. 13 episodes will be produced and flighted on television, 1 million copies of an easy to read booklet will be distributed. Concurrently a series of community based interventions: community radio talk shows (12 stations running 10 weekly talk shows each) with local experts and community dialogues to address social norms and engage communities in conversation (a major step in the social change process). A marketing campaign will be instituted to keep the issues top of mind and reinforce the social change actions and messages. The intervention is monitored through following audience ratings, qualitative research, keeping of registers, analyzing content of dialogue and marking of portfolios of evidence. External independent evaluation is conducted and exposed people compared to non-exposed to measure impact. (see attached word document for description of Soul Buddyz Club).