The WHO 3 x 5 plan envisages that community-based organisations, including groups of people living with HIV, will play a key role in scaling up treatment. This is not just a measure to plug gaps in the health services of heavily affected countries, but a response to evidence from early pilot programmes. These programmes have demonstrated that community participation is a key element in ensuring the acceptability of treatment. Making treatment part of the social fabric rather than a hidden enterprise is the only way to ensure long-term adherence.
Governance and participation in health
Community mobilisation key to success of 3 x 5
Speaking up for HIV-positive women in Zimbabwe
Women with AIDS face neglect and prejudice all over the world. Many are denied healthcare during pregnancy or forced to have abortions. Some are sent away by their husband's family to their parents' home. How can their situation be improved? The International Community of Women living with HIV/AIDS set up a research project to find out the needs of HIV-positive women in Zimbabwe. Women with the virus were chosen as team leaders and trained to carry out interviews. Following the project these women were better able to represent the rights of HIV positive women and play an active role in raising AIDS awareness in their communities.
PROVIDE ANTI-RETROVIRAL THERAPY TO ALL IN NEED
Pan-African Treatment Access Movement (PATAM) Statement
"On this World Aids Day, the Pan-African Treatment Access Movement (PATAM), a grassroots social movement for access to anti-retroviral therapy and other essential medicines extends a hand to our grandparents, brothers, sisters, friends and many others in our communities who relentlessly bear the brunt of the epidemic with unending fortitude. They are the ones whose attention does not stray away from those who lie immobile, as their bodies slowly succumb to the wiles of the HI virus. They are the young who are forced to stop attending school so that they can look after their even younger brothers and sisters because mum and dad have long died of Aids. We salute you!"
Further details: /newsletter/id/30130
Creating the will to practice participation: the role of donors, NGOs and recipient governments
All aid actors, whether donors, recipients or implementers, now talk of incorporating participation of the poor - but has there really been a paradigm shift? What do the major multilateral and bilateral donors mean when they talk about 'participation' and 'stakeholders'? What institutional and attitudinal changes are necessary to enable the poor to truly participate in decision-making?
Letting Them Die: How HIV/AIDS Intervention Programmes Often Fail
This book examines the context and social construction of sexuality, HIV prevention and community development, based on a three-year study of a large-scale HIV/AIDS prevention programme in a South African gold mining community. The Summertown Project was a well-resourced intervention that sought to promote sexual health through the treatment of STIs, community-led peer education, and the promotion of local participation and 'stakeholder' partnerships.
LEARNING TO LIVE: MONITORING AND EVALUATING HIV/AIDS PROGRAMMES FOR YOUNG PEOPLE
This paper addresses the lack of monitoring and evaluation (M&E) procedures within HIV/AIDS programme design. It offers a practical guide to developing, monitoring and evaluating practice in HIV/AIDS-related programmes for young people, based on the experience of projects around the world. It focuses on recent learning from work with young people in peer education, school-based education, clinic-based service delivery reaching especially vulnerable children, and working with children affected by HIV/AIDS. Good examples of practice are included throughout.
Case Study of the MTV Staying Alive Campaign
Since 2002, YouthNet has partnered with MTV on the Staying Alive Campaign, which reached over 800 million households worldwide, making it the largest public health campaign ever. The campaign produced five hours of television available to TV and radio stations around the world, and also produced a Web site with HIV/AIDS information, referrals, and programming in English, French, and Spanish. A case study was recently published by YouthNet, detailing the successes and experiences of the 2002 Staying Alive Campaign.
Friends in deed - preventing HIV through peer education in South African
HIV is rampant among young people in South Africa, despite sound knowledge about sexual health risks. Levels of perceived vulnerability among this group are low and unprotected sex is common. Researchers from the London School of Economics studied a participatory programme seeking to empower young people to change gender norms as an HIV prevention strategy.
Sensitive matters: HIV/AIDS awareness campaigns in Zimbabwe
How can we tell if teenagers are responding to HIV/AIDS awareness campaigns? Is it acceptable to conduct randomised trials in schools to find out? University College London, together with the University Zimbabwe and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, looked into the sensitive topic of interviewing and testing teenagers for sexually-transmitted diseases (STDs) including HIV, in a feasibility study for a large community randomised trial. It found that communities in Zimbabwe were enthusiastic about taking part in trials in schools and recognised the importance of these.
Community participation and sexual health – is there a relationship?
Is there a relationship between people’s degree of community involvement and participation and their sexual behaviour? If this is the case, it may help to identify possible areas of HIV/AIDS intervention at community level. Researchers from the London School of Economics (LSE) investigated this relationship in a mining town in South Africa. The results were mixed. Whereas some forms of community participation were associated with safer sexual behaviour and lower levels of HIV infection, others acted in the opposite way. The findings highlight the need for further research.