Using Drama Pedagogy to Enhance Understanding of HIV Transmission, Infection, and Prevention Among Third-Year Student Teachers.

Thirty-eight years into the HIV and AIDS pandemic, the world is still striving to reduce global HIV infections towards zero new infections and AIDS-related deaths by 2030. Sub-Saharan Africa continues to carry the burden of global HIV infections as governmental and nongovernmental agencies try out different prevention strategies (UNAIDS, 2024b). Several scholars have argued that comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) is the best preventive strategy to reach youth and key populations with factual information regarding HIV and AIDS. This paper draws from the project, Mentoring as a Method to Promote Women's Health in the Context of HIV-Prevention and Unequal Gender Relations, which employed memory work, photo-voice, drama, drawings, and focus group discussions with third-year student teachers in a life orientation module. Focussing on the data generated through drama, I present an arts-based activity that was used to teach about HIV transmission to student teachers in a bid to equip them with alternative ways of teaching school-learners about HIV and AIDS. The findings highlight student teachers' lived experiences and how they have shaped their perceptions of HIV infections and living with AIDS. I argue from the findings, that arts-based pedagogies allow for enhanced understanding of complex phenomena due to their participatory and in-built intervention nature. Thus, I posit that pedagogies that employ participatory, arts-based, and visual methodologies should be extensively employed in teacher-education towards reducing new HIV infections among the youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]