Not long ago, Florence Z. thought she could do nothing about her HIV status. 

"I am 70 years old," she said. "I felt it was something that could happen to my grandchildren, not to me." 

But then she saw the challenge facing her: "I had to help my grandchildren, but I didn't know how." 

Florence Z. has since joined a group of concerned grannies in Amathole in the Eastern Cape and she is now learning to use words like "sex" and "condom" in a way she had never done before. 

She is also learning about what young people say about sexual violence and HIV and AIDS. 

"It is the first time that someone has a workshop of this nature for elders only. We are very happy about this, because it is not easy to express ourselves when there are youth around," she said. 

Several of these groups are taking off in Amathole, where the district municipality and the Community Information, Empowerment and Transparency (CIET) Trust, a national research NGO with a local branch in this city, launched a joint project today to bridge the distance between the elders and youth in the fight against the pandemic. 

CIET will measure the impact of the project on both the elderly and youth. The Conflict and Governance Facility (CAGE), a partnership between the National Treasury and the European Union, sponsors the initiative. 

"Elders are often left out of HIV and AIDS programmes because they are seen as sexually inactive and at low risk, and yet they can be a moral yardstick for younger people, and so an essential part of the solutions we seek," said councillor Helen Neal-May of Amathole, who spearheaded the initiative.
 
"Our local AIDS council is working to bring together all those with a stake in the AIDS epidemic, and this is a great opportunity we have. Our elders need all the help they can get." 

"We have to narrow the gap between elders and youth if we want to tackle HIV and AIDS," said Neil Andersson, executive director of CIET Trust, who led a nationwide study of sexual violence and HIV and AIDS in 2003, the largest ever in South Africa, covering 283 000 youths, 42 000 of them in the Eastern Cape. 

According to him, one third of the youth in the Eastern Cape feel they do not have anyone to talk to about their sexual lives, and the situation is "worse" for girls. 

"This can have very negative consequences, if we consider that six out of 10 children and teenagers think it is not rape to force sex with someone you know. And, in spite of all the publicity out there, four out of 10 do not know that condoms can protect them from HIV and AIDS." 

He added that elders could play a crucial role in prevention "because they have strong values and powerful life lessons to share. 

"But we also know from our studies that they need specific knowledge about sexual violence and the HIV and AIDS epidemic, and more self-confidence to reach out to younger people." 

These goals fit with CAGE's efforts to link research and policy in "practical" ways. 

"We have followed stringent evaluation procedures to award the counter-founding for this project, and this gives us every confidence that the research will render practical and tangible benefits for both youth and aged of the Eastern Cape," said Charmaine Estment, programme co-ordinator of CAGE. 

"It was the creative and divergent angle of the project that focused on the marginalized groups of the aged for an HIV and Aids awareness intervention that positioned it so well in the funding decision-making," the CAGE official indicated. 

In CIET's workshops, elders discuss the evidence from studies on sexual violence and HIV and AIDS and explore ways of talking with their children and grandchildren about these issues. 

The groups also identify HIV and AIDS services in local communities and make sure they know how to get access and how and where to speak out in case they see the need for improvement. 

"Our workshops with gogos boost their self-confidence a lot," explained Ncumisa Ngxowa, CIET's coordinator in Eastern Cape. 

"The first few sessions are very quiet, but then they get used to all the new words and they start asking us all the questions that may have been bottled inside them for years." 

CIET's facilitators are particularly sensitive to gender issues. 

"We keep the male and female elders separate, because they are shy even to talk in front of members of the opposite sex of their own age group," added Ms Ngxowa.