How is Shared Interest dealing with HIV/Aids in South Africa?
The impact that we have is primarily in three different sectors: one is rural development, one is micro enterprising and one is affordable housing. What that means in terms of HIV/Aids is that in each of those sectors, we basically experience the impact of the Aids pandemic but also are able to work with community institutions that are combating the epidemic. For example, in housing we provide guarantees for loans to emerging contractors – that is, small contractors of color who are starting up, who were barred from ever even owning a business under apartheid. Some of those contractors are working in communities that are themselves hit by Aids. Sometimes contractors in a family are dealing with the pandemic. The institutions that we work with provide technical support to those families [and] to those entrepreneurs.
