Maasai Warriors. Credit: Christina Lauterbach

Health education messages are not simply passively accepted by their audiences. They must compete with alternative beliefs, experiences and logics that may be more convincing than the information the health professionals seek to impart. The content of successful STI/HIV/AIDS education messages among the Maasai cannot, therefore, be developed without specific reference to Maasai notions of sexuality, traditional values, transmittable diseases, health beliefs and healing systems.

While there already exists a large body of ethnographic literature on Maasai culture going back several decades, specific research on Maasai meanings and explanations of sexuality (and their impact on HIV transmission and prevention) is almost non-existent. Unless local Maasai constructions and expressions of sexuality are explicitly explored and integrated into STI/HIV/AIDS education and prevention, current strategies will remain limited. Empuaan aims to deepen and refine existing knowledge and understanding of Maasai customary beliefs, values and behaviour, in order to develop and strengthen culturally-appropriate STI/HIV/AIDS prevention among the Maasai.

Empuaan will feed all new knowledge into the process of dialogue and debate on which the whole project depends. The spoken, written, video and audio materials to be used will be constantly tested, monitored and evaluated in the light of this detailed discovery process.