Changing the Course of AIDS: Peer Education in South Africa and Its Lessons for the Global Crisis

Changing the Course of AIDS offers an in-depth evaluation of a methodology used in South Africa, which hopes to demonstrate that regular workers serving as peer educators can be agents of behavioural change who are as effective, or even more so, than experts who lecture about facts and health care behaviour. According to the authors, the book challenges conventional health education methods and explores how ordinary people influence the decisions and behaviour of others, and how "patiently, quietly, and often subversively, people can make a difference". It discusses what peer educators are doing on the ground and argues that people should learn from them.

According to the publishers, this book is of particular interest to any person working in the field of HIV and AIDS, as it explores the use of workplace peer education as a strategy to address the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

The book includes the following chapters:

• Empowered with Information I Have Influenced a Lot of People: The Quest for Behavioural Change
• People Are Dying, But They Don't Listen When We Tell Them: The Corporate Response to HIV/AIDS in South Africa
• For the Love of People: Peer Education as a Response from Below
• Backstage Social Divisions
• Slipping Out of Order
• To Speak with One Voice
• Social Space, Leadership, and Action: Peer Education and Behavioural Change