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Abstract: Tsha Tsha is an educational television drama series that focuses on the universe of young people engaging in exploring love, sex and relationships in a world affected by the realities of HIV/AIDS. Set in the small fictional rural town of Lubusi in the Eastern Cape of South Africa, the drama explores young peoples’ lives as they make their way through the passage to adulthood, developing self-efficacy... more
Abstract: Tsha Tsha is an educational television drama series that focuses on the universe of young people engaging in exploring love, sex and relationships in a world affected by the realities of HIV/AIDS. Set in the small fictional rural town of Lubusi in the Eastern Cape of South Africa, the drama explores young peoples’ lives as they make their way through the passage to adulthood, developing self-efficacy and humanity at an individual and community level. It explores many of the challenges facing young people in South Africa today and aims to enhance their capacity to reflect on problems, to engage in developing solutions, and to become active agents in crafting the circumstances of their own lives. The story commences with the arrival of DJ, a young man from the city. The tension between life in Lubusi's and his prior life in the city is revisited throughout the series as the characters struggle to create personal and social contexts where they can be creative and fulfilled in a personal as well as a social sense. Ballroom dancing is used as an organizing concept in the drama. It provides a thread of continuity in the eventful circumstances of young people’s lives and also brings the characters together. At the same it provides images of creative relationships between people which are not beset by the complexities of life outside of the codes of dance. The ballroom dancing club provides a metaphoric background for exploring relationships and intimacy. Dancing also provides opportunities for the characters to engage with the world beyond Lubusi and to aspire to extend their personal horizons. In addition to the four principal characters (Viwe, Boniswa, Andile, and DJ) there is a group of secondary characters. These include family members, friends and townsfolk, some of whom arrive and leave, providing an eventful and challenging social environment in which the four principal characters learn about themselves and their world. Fantasy, humor and entertaining secondary characters also provide dramatic relief and entertainment value.|This DVD compiles the first 4 episodes of Series I. The first episode introduces the main characters and provides some background about their families. Viwe Sibaya is the daughter of Vincent, the town's funeral director, and a member of the wealthiest family in Lubusi. DJ is the nephew of Mike Jolinkomo, the owner of the Satisfaction night club, a central location in the show. DJ left Johannesburg due to trouble he was in, and now must do menial work for Mike at Satisfaction. Andile is a young man whose mother is dying of AIDS, and whose father Sonwabo was a womanizing dancer that drank too much and died of AIDS. Boniswa is a bookish young woman who lives outside of town, and just got a job waitressing at Satisfaction. She has a young son who lives in the larger town of King Williamstown. Thandiswa Kekana is a dance teacher trying to bring back the spirit of dance to Lubusi, and was also Sowabo's dance partner and sometimes lover before he died.|"Old Shoes" explores Andile's feelings about his father and what he sees of his father in himself. Andile drinks in order to deal with stress, and hooks up with his dance partner Mimi even though he doesn't love her. He feels haunted by his father's ghost, and his behavior affects his ability to take care of his dying mother. Meanwhile, DJ pursues Boniswa, although she resists his advances.|"Love Story" focuses on Viwe and her ex-boyfriend Vukile who returns to visit Lubusi after graduating college. Viwe is feeling a rekindling of her feelings for him until he tells her that he is HIV positive. She realizes after Vukile leaves that she didn't know that much about love, and begins worrying about her HIV status. Meanwhile, Andile is forced to start working for Viwe's father, the funeral director, in order to keep the family's funeral policy, which Andile's mother couldn't afford to make payments on anymore.|"The Last Straw" shows how frustrated DJ has become with his new life in Lubusi working as a slave for his uncle Mike. He finally snaps when Mike makes him a taxi marshal. DJ decides to leave Lubusi but cannot catch a ride out of town. Then, after Mike sees how the juke box that DJ ordered has improved business at Satisfaction, he drives out to the edge of town and picks up DJ. Soon DJ begins to feel more at home, and even agrees to be Boniswa's dance partner in Thandiswa's class. less
Notes: See TR SOA 57 for a facilitator's guide for the first season.
|Copies of Tsha Tsha (primarily on VHS) are available free of charge from the Centre for AIDS Development, Research and Evaluation (CADRE). For more information, please contact Helen Hajiyiannis at CADRE in Johannesburg ( or +27 11 3392611).
|Tsha Tsha is a multi-part entertainment education television drama series... more
Notes: See TR SOA 57 for a facilitator's guide for the first season.
|Copies of Tsha Tsha (primarily on VHS) are available free of charge from the Centre for AIDS Development, Research and Evaluation (CADRE). For more information, please contact Helen Hajiyiannis at CADRE in Johannesburg ( or +27 11 3392611).
|Tsha Tsha is a multi-part entertainment education television drama series commissioned by SABC Education and produced by CADRE and Curious Pictures. Additional support is provided by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Communications Programs and funding is provided by USAID. The series focuses on young people living in a world affected by HIV/AIDS and other social problems. HIV/AIDS issues dealt with in the first 13 episodes include: the plight of young people having to care for sick and dying parents, including the financial and social risks associated with this and the burden of responsibility for younger siblings; confronting the possibility of being HIV positive and undergoing Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT) and the attendant personal social challenges of discovering that one is HIV positive; dealing with HIV-related stigma as a community; the challenges of adopting HIV risk avoidance behaviors including condom use, secondary abstinence, faithfulness and use of alternative forms of sexual expression; and recognizing the risks of sexual violence.
|In addition to these specific themes the series has as an underlying concern, namely, the choices which young people exercise in choosing and shaping relationships. This is closely tied to questions of identity and in particular the ways in which young people define themselves in relation to others and are in turn defined by the way that others define them. Much of the learning undergone by the principal characters are consequent to interactions with others. The series plays strongly on the need to understand how people learn about themselves through others and through taking cognizance of the responses of others.
|Tsha Tsha has been broadcast since 2003 and was originally shown on Fridays at 8:30 pm. It is currently broadcast at 8:30 pm on Wednesday evenings on SABC1 and the last series ran from October 2004 to April 2005. It achieves an audience share of 40-50% during the time slot it is broadcast and reaches in excess of 2-million viewers. With a view to encouraging post-broadcast discussion, radio talk shows focusing on Tsha Tsha themes are broadcast in nine languages on Thursday and Friday afternoons. An interactive website is also hosted by SABC.Tsha Tsha is used in non-broadcast contexts including, for example, being distributed to 40 Higher Education Institutions through CADRE’s partner organization, DramAidE. On some of these campuses Big Screen viewings are held and are supplemented by facilitated discussions, where themes, students’ opinions, experiences and feelings are shared. The incorporation of Tsha Tsha into the HIV/AIDS Program in over 200 correctional services facilities across South Africa is also in the planning stages. less
Formative Research: Research has been an intrinsic part of the development of Tsha Tsha. The initial research process, which formed part of a competitive bidding process, based on a call for proposals by SABC Education, was conceptual in nature. It involved the setting out of methodological processes and principles of the series along with potential settings, characters and scenarios. The initial conceptual framework... more
Formative Research: Research has been an intrinsic part of the development of Tsha Tsha. The initial research process, which formed part of a competitive bidding process, based on a call for proposals by SABC Education, was conceptual in nature. It involved the setting out of methodological processes and principles of the series along with potential settings, characters and scenarios. The initial conceptual framework was used for the development and production of a pilot episode. Research beyond the pilot stage involved a team of researchers and members of the production team visiting Peddie, exploring the town, and becoming familiar with the people and places that are important in the lives of the young people living there. Numerous focus groups were run with people representing a broad range of community interests,7 with an emphasis on understanding key formative dynamics in the lives of young people. People were invited to share stories that were important in their own lives and the life of the community. Research included investigation of the culture of ballroom dancing in the Eastern Cape through observation and interviews with dancers and those involved in organising ballroom dancing activities. At the same time, a review of key HIV/AIDS issues relevant to young people in the area were conducted through thematic focus groups and interviews, as well material previously gathered by CADRE in the rural areas of the Eastern Cape. The development process involved moving back-and-forth between creative concepts and research. This included testing early ideas for characters and story outlines through focus group research with young people. These research sessions were conducted in Grahamstown and Johannesburg with the intention of tapping into the perceptions of both rural and urban audiences and ensuring that the emerging product was of interest and credible in both settings. less
Pretesting: The script development process involved the creation of storylines that occurred in single episodes, or spanned two or more episodes. This was done in the context of the broad storyline over each block of 13 episodes for each character. In this process the basic elements of characters could be set out in a detailed ‘character bible’ which defined the history and personality of the main and secondary... more
Pretesting: The script development process involved the creation of storylines that occurred in single episodes, or spanned two or more episodes. This was done in the context of the broad storyline over each block of 13 episodes for each character. In this process the basic elements of characters could be set out in a detailed ‘character bible’ which defined the history and personality of the main and secondary characters. This incorporated their likely responses to each other and the community. This process embodied, in broad terms, the events to which they were likely to be exposed – for example, it defined that Viwe would be HIV positive and that Andile would be a talented but reluctant dancer. Development of story-beats fleshed out the main events of the story for each episode and led to further clarification of the characters. Subsequently, a team of writers expanded the beats into a script format. Throughout these processes there was ongoing testing of the developing script through focus groups and participatory workshops in Johannesburg and Peddie. The story was assessed for cultural and social authenticity, for likeability and interest, and for response. Research participants commented in detail on what they expected of characters, what they found jarring or inappropriate and what they felt was being conveyed by the drama. Results of these focus group discussions were compiled into reports that were fed back to the writers who accordingly reworked the scripts. At various points further focus groups and interviews were conducted – for example, with people living with HIV/AIDS and health workers – to check the script from the perspective of -their specific experience. less
Summative Evaluation: A panel survey design was used to evaluate the drama. The final wave of data collection revealed that 68% had watched some episodes of the drama and 32% did not watch it at all. Because a majority of respondents watched the drama a comprehensive scale of recall of the drama was used to construct a continuous measure of exposure to it. This measure was divided at the median to produce two groups for... more
Summative Evaluation: A panel survey design was used to evaluate the drama. The final wave of data collection revealed that 68% had watched some episodes of the drama and 32% did not watch it at all. Because a majority of respondents watched the drama a comprehensive scale of recall of the drama was used to construct a continuous measure of exposure to it. This measure was divided at the median to produce two groups for propensity score analysis of the results: a none and low recall group and a high recall group (50% respectively). less
Summative Evaluation Links:
Two-page Communication Impact
Presentation on measuring the show's impact
Key findings of the Evaluation of Episodes 1-26, 61 pgs
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