Choma online magazine

South Africa is home to almost one-fifth of people living with HIV worldwide. In 2019, women accounted for the majority of new infections in the country. In 2020, 4 800 000 women and girls aged 15 and older were living with HIV in South Africa, compared to 2 700 000 men and boys aged 15 and older (UNAIDS). In South Africa the trend of higher HIV infection rates among women are not only limited to the 15-24 year age group, although this group is indeed also severely affected as well. Teenage pregnancy is another challenge facing girls and young women in South Africa. The Gauteng province in South Africa saw a 60% increase in the number of children born to teenage mothers since the start of the COVID -19 pandemic, with more than 23,000 girls under the age of 18 giving birth in the period between April 2020 and March 2021. It is worth noting that 934 of these young mothers were below the age of 14 years (www.reliefweb.int/report/south-africa-/teen-pregnancies-south-africa-jump-60-during-covid-19-pandemic. 

According to UNAIDS (2019), uneducated girls are twice as likely to acquire HIV than those who have some schooling. A lack of access to comprehensive HIV and SRH services means that women are less able to look after their sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and reduce their risk of HIV infection. Adolescent girls and young women, both in and out of school, receive little or no advice and support on topics related to HIV, sex and sexuality, which means they are not aware of basic information relating to contraception or their sexual health. Studies have shown that increasing educational achievement among women and girls is linked to better SRH outcomes, including delayed childbearing, safer births and safer abortions, lower rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and unintended pregnancies (UNAIDS, 2019).

http://www.choma.co.za/about

Choma mobile magazine aims to engage young South African women between the ages of 15 and 24 years, through an interactive online magazine, accessible on mobile phones as well as other devices. Choma magazine seeks to engage user interest in a wide array of popular content on Love and relationships, Sex and Pregnancy, Inspiration, Fashion, Beauty and Health. The primary purpose of the magazine is to engage young women and girls on HIV and sexual reproductive health and rights with the objective to contribute to HIV prevention and ultimately an HIV free generation. Through the use of social media, which has the ability to reach large numbers of young women, Choma is aimed at engaging with and connecting young women on topics that interest and are important to them – both fun and serious, but with the overall aim of reducing HIV incidence in these young girls and women; it is available on various platforms including website, Instagram, Facebook, Whatsapp, Twitter and TikTok. In addition, the magazine has an “Ask Choma” feature which allows its users to ask Choma questions freely and confidentially which are responded to by our trained moderators.

Choma has interventions that are both online and offline. Offline activations are conducted to generate an interest in Choma online and to drive traffic to the online platform (Attracting young people to the Choma media platforms). This involves visiting schools, universities, community centres and interacting with youth on topics such as HIV prevention, menstrual health, contraceptives, and pregnancy. Through offline activations, new users are recruited onto Choma platforms. In the latter half of 2021 for instance, the magazine had 62, 628 views of family planning articles, 32, 817 views of gender inequality articles and 28, 075 views of articles related to sexual and reproductive health and rights related articles. In 2021 (January to December), Choma platforms attracted 446, 319 new users, and retained 39, 926 returning users. Through google analytics, user behaviour is tracked in order to inform content development.

 In addition to the development of content, Choma also provides a platform for young girls and women to “ASK Choma” about anything that might be bothering them. The Ask Choma platform is resourced by moderators who are qualified psychologists, and social science graduates with a counselling background, to give Chomas the room to address the issues that are pressing to them. In recent online polls on the impact that Choma content has had in helping girls and young women to make informed decisions, more than 60% of respondents indicated that they interacted with content on Choma at least daily, and an overwhelming 83% of this category felt that Choma articles had influenced their decision making in the majority. To date, Choma has reached 5 million users since inception.

The solution, Choma magazine serves adolescent girls and young women in all areas of South Africa, in both rural and urban areas. As indicated, high teenage pregnancy rates in girls as young as 10 years old highlight the need for the empowerment of these young girls to ensure that they make informed decisions about their sexual and reproductive health. 

Through ASK Choma, girls and young women on Choma have repeatedly expressed their frustrations with accessing health services at public health facilities, where they are often met with judgemental older health practitioners that question why they need sexual and reproductive health services. 

Choma is aimed at accessing marginalised groups in communities, and to this end, the online magazine was made accessible to highly populated areas in Soweto, and Orange Farm in South Africa, as well as in some rural areas in KwaZulu Natal, through Choma Café’s. Choma Cafes are solar powered shipping containers that have been converted into internet cafes and which provide safe spaces where girls and young women can access sexual and reproductive health information. Choma digital magazine therefore presents a solution that provides information that enables girls and young women to have self-agency. Due to its online nature, the magazine is accessible anywhere in the world, and readily scalable with well positioned partners locally, regionally and across the African continent that work with girls and young women.

Choma magazine is a project of HIVSA, a non-profit organization established in 2002, that works with Community based Organisations (CBOs) to develop tailored solutions to community and health challenges. HIVSA delivers interventions aimed at jointly identifying challenges and solutions that address pressing and prevailing needs. HIVSA further implements, in partnership with CBOs, interventions that support orphans and vulnerable children and youth in communities within the Gauteng province of South Africa through a 5 year USAID funded grant. 17 of the more than 30 organisaitons that HIVSA works with have Choma Cafe's which are solar powered internet safe spaces where girls and young women can access Choma magazine online, participate in curriculum based interventions focused on SRHR and receive support for their pressing challenges.

Through the CBOs, Choma magazine is able to engage with young people to inform their needs, feedback on existing content on Choma as well as suggested improvements to ensure that the magazine remains relevant and engaging. Focus Group Discussions and community dialogues are useful tools that we work with often to solicit feedback and input. HIVSA's Choma coordinator also drives engagement with online users through polls, quizzes and surveys to solicit user feedback and input into the design of interventions.

Since inception in 2013, Choma has engaged with more than 5 million users online. Since the beginning of 2023 alone, Choma has engaged with 93,402 new users across all social media platforms, with an average 10,378 new users monthly. 

In addition, ASK Choma receives and average of 300 to 400 questions on Facebook and WhatsApp monthly, 100 on Instagram from users seeking help on questions relating to termination of unwanted pregnancy, relationship related challenges, including intimate partner violence and many others.  

Choma magazine is innovative in that it uses existing technology (social media) to communicate with young people in a language they understand and relate to. ASK Choma engages with users directly and does not use Airtificial Intelligence to respond to users, which is unique to Choma.

Choma Objectives

1.1 Provide access to accurate SRH and lifestyle information
1.2 Promote academic achievement to achieve economic independence
1.3 Raise awareness about mental health amongst girls and young woman
1.4 Promote gender equality as a fundamental human right (by increasing awareness and understanding)
Choma Behaviour Change Goals
1.4.1 Delay sexual debut, including secondary abstinence
1.4.2 Improve HIV risk perception and associated behaviours (includes age disparate risks, drugs and alcohol related, confusing love and trust, reduce number of sexual partners, regular testing)
1.4.3 Increase demand for HIV Testing – Awareness of importance, taking action and advocating for knowing yours and your partners HIV status
1.4.4 Increase negotiation of condom use even in “committed” and “loving” relationships - this includes the use of the female condom
1.4.5 Increased understanding of and demand for SRH services including contraception, STI screening
1.4.6 Increase awareness of Sexual Reproductive rights and how to promote, advocate for and access these rights
1.4.7 Increase awareness, understanding, promote and advocate for gender equality and rights
1.4.8 Increase engagement, dialogue, participation, and advocacy by youth (online and offline) related to issues affecting them

Short term goals
Medium term goals
Long term goals
• Undertake visioning exercise for Choma to create a medium and long- term strategy
• Review current services, web architecture and technology
• Bring Choma content development in-house through terminating current digital media contract with ARC and delivering Choma through internal resources
• Set up internal social media resources
• Develop a dynamic content plan
• Pilot 1 - Develop the creative executions
• Produce short form content and distribute this across platforms
• Pilot 2 - Psycho-social dynamic service – Therapy, Mental Health etc.
• Pilot 3 – Mobilise for opportunities
• Pilot 4 – Social Enterprises
• Grow subscribers
• Hybrid funding model - Public/Donor/Private/
• Secure alliances for expansion (digital & Outreach)
• Choma Fund for Young Female Entrepreneurs
• Choma Broadcast Content
• Choma Social Franchise
• Continue to develop human resources to execute key aspects of the strategy
• Choma Incubator to mentor, support new ideas

Vision for Choma: To be a leading health media and outreach platform for adolescents girls and young women in Africa.
Goal: To contribute towards positive health seeking behaviour and eradicating high HIV incidence in girls and young women by providing appropriate content services and socio-economic developmental opportunities.

Full time staff - 4

Support staff - 12

Casual workers - 10 (Choma Champions)

Choma magazine was established in 2013 and is in it's 10th year of operation. Since inception, Choma has relied on a full time staff complement of 4 individuals, comprising a project manager, digital marketing coordinator, a community coordinator and online community moderators. 

As an organisation, HIVSA has policies that embrace inclusivity, diversity, equality and fairness in its recruitment practices, as well as in the selection of business partners. 

Choma magazine by its nature, espouses practices that are inclusive of all people in their diversity, with a focus on ensuring equitable access to sexual and reproductive health and rights for all. As such, Choma magazine publishes content that lives up to these principles. For instance, content for the month of October on Choma magazine's WeCare mental wellbeing campaign focused on Queer rights and mental wellbeing, a theme that ran through all of Choma's content in October.