My name is Faith Phiri and I am 30 years old. I am a founder and Program Director for Girls Empowerment Network in Malawi. I am so passionate for the young people more especially girls and young women who are most of the times victim of abuse, sexual exploitation and lack adequate education on SEXUALITY and HIV/Aids.

Most girls targeted in this campaign are denied of the opportunity to higher education and are forced to premature marriages and get married to elderly men who had had multiple sexual partners. Unfortunately their marriages do not last long and are dumped and left with big responsibilities of caring for their siblings. Sex becomes a means of survival for these girls and this again increases probable to HIV exposure. This campaign will also target in school girls so that they are adequately skilled and be able to make wise choices and decisions.

This campaign intends to reach 50 girls as direct beneficiaries and 500 girls indirectly.

Project Progress (15-30 June 2008)
1. Establishment of three girls clubs.
Three clubs has been established so far and these are Manja volunteer girls club, Misesa young women for change and Che Nsomba club. Members of these clubs will be involved in voluntarism and will be recruited as peer educators. The trained Peer Educators will be expected to reach out to more girls and young women on HIV/Aids issues, sexuality, gender and women’s right.

2. Planning meetings.
Planning sessions have been taking place with girls involved in this project and community members (parents and local leadership). Basically this activity was aimed at identifying information gaps and better understands sexual and reproductive health needs of girls.

Introduction:
My name is Christabell Opudo, I come from Nairobi Kenya. I have been engaged in youth activities since 2006 focusing on advocacy on positive living and reaching out to young people by sharing information on HIV/AIDS. I realized that so many young people are not aware of their HIV status, since they have not taken the initiative to get tested and more so the young people who are living with that I met were trying very hard to empower themselves so at to live positive. Their efforts seemed tireless since they had not reached out to their fellow youth who they were involved into day to day activities. This did not only jeopardize their efforts to live positively with HIV but promoted stigma of all types among the young people.
Activities carried out:
Identification of volunteers.
These exercise was to help in identifying volunteers that would work together to achieve the projects objectives.
This was done through referral by group leaders in the identified constituencies Makadara and Kibera where the TASC project will cover.
The call was made to reach out to individuals who are interested to be volunteers to join the Together against stigma project with the qualities listed below:

1. Age 18-35 years (definition of youth according to Kenyan constitution)
2. Peer educator with knowledge on HIV/AIDS
3. A member of a youth group based in Nairobi
4. Ready to offer 2-4 hours per week when called upon on specific days
5. Active email address and phone number
6. With knowledge of either Makadara or Kibera constituency environs
7. Effective communication/facilitation skills will be an added advantage
The total number of volunteers who responded to this programme was 25 and due to the fact that the project was to cater for 15 volunteers, adjustments had to be done to be able to accommodate all the volunteers and this was possible as all the volunteers were taken through the grant made and also the activities involved.

Capacity building for volunteers
To be able to have effective volunteers who respond to the needs of the projects it is wise to build their capacity through trainings that focused on the project objectives to be ale to improve their way of handling the programme activities.
The 3 days capacity building training focused on training 25 participants on the topics below:

Day 1
1. Basic facts on HIV/AIDS Definition, modes of transmission,
2. Prevention and treatment, immune system, stages of HIV illness, signs and symptoms
3. Stigma definition and forms of stigma
4. Manifestation of Stigma,
5. Interventions to combating stigma

Day 2.
1. Volunteer trends & definitions.
2. Volunteer wheel
3. Volunteer Recruitment Selection and induction
4. Volunteer support, training and retention
5. Volunteer Evaluations and policies

Day 3.
1. Project management definition, objectives role of coordinator.
2. Managing resources,
3. Evaluation and report writing.
4. Facilitation skills
5. Overview Stay Alive youth group, TASC project and policies
6. TASC plan of action
7. Group work,
8. Evaluations

Allocation of duties and assignments
The participants divided duties and activities amongst themselves. The work force was dived into 2.
1. Members from Kibera community
To organize a youth dialogue focusing on HIV/AIDS and stigma related to it, at the Kibera community to be held on the 26th July 200. The facilitators will be the members from Makadara community.

2. Members from Makadara community.
To organize youth dialogue focusing on HIV/AIDS and stigma related to it, at the Makadara community level to be held on the 12th July 2008. The facilitators will be the participants from Kibera constituency.

Regards,
Christabel

Introduction

My name is UGIRASHEBUJA Jean Luc; I am a Rwandan medical student at the National University of Rwanda. For 4 years ago, I was voluntarily working on HIV/AIDS issues. I have participated in different anti-HIV activities such as Workshops about HIV and Gender issues, Candle light Memorial March2007 and 2008, HIV Village sessions and Cine-mobile, VCT campaigns, People Living with HIV Sessions and Assistance, etc
Recently I discovered that HIV Test is the only entry point for HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care. Since then I have already initiated two different projects:

-VCT Campaign Project-GYCA, 2008
-Mobile VCT Project-MTV, 2008

Both of them focus on VCT as an entry point for HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care.
Courses:
I have done the following courses:

-GYCA courses on Project Management, preparation to the Mexico IAC and Political Advocacy.
-Global Health Learning Centre courses on HIV Basics (Part 1), Family Planning 101, Standard Days Method, Tuberculosis Basics, Youth Reproductive Health, achieved Exemplary level

Activities carried out

The first step of the project execution is Project preparation which includes:

-Contacts
-Training of volunteers and
-Announcement of the Home-based campaign

As we are at the very beginning of the project, we have already made contacts with different government leaders in order to request for permission to implement our project activities. Yet, Rwanda Village Concept Project/RVCP (www.rwanda-vcp.org), Medical Student Association of Rwanda/MEDSAR (www.medsar.org), and Faculty of Medicine at the National University of Rwanda have approved our request. We still waiting for only MUKURA Sector reaction to our request and I believe that all will be arranged by the end of this week.

Dear Friends,

The goal of our project was to build capacity of young women in HIV prevention and behavior change communication and to enable them to play their roles as agent of change in Prevention of HIV/AIDS among young women. It is my pleasure to inform you that we have start work on our project.

Staff has been hired, briefing meeting with staff was done in first week of the project, and work has been started on materials and manual development for trainings that will be conducted for capacity building of young women.

Before the training a KAP (Knowledge, Attitude, and Perception) survey will be conducted to know about the attitude, knowledge, and perception of young women about HIV/AIDS. We have also start working on preparation survey forms. I hope this project will be s success!!

Regards,
Gulalai
Pakistan

Hi All
My name is Amare one of the grantee for GYCA HIV AIDS Small grant,
I am living in Bahir dar, the most beautiful and one of top tourist destination cities In Ethiopia, 560 km away from the capital, Addis Ababa.

Let me say more about me and my works since we all are invited to say about it a little bit. I late to submit b/c I was out of office for long hours

After graduating from Bahir Dar University of engineering in 2006, I started working on youth empowerment, HIV AIDS and Environmental programs.

The reason why I am working on HIV AIDS is that, Ethiopia is one of the top listed countries affected by HIV AIDS and its impact, so I decided to mobilize my peers, the community to play our personal stake in combating its spread, in hindering its social and economical problems.

My plan was to start implementing the program (GRANT) immediately in may, due to some inconvenience I am forced to select my children in august, from June till the mid of august school is closed in Ethiopia since these months are rainy (summer) seasons but for the last two weeks I got my self busy in dealing with the concerned officials to start selecting places that can host our children when they start their job.

Cheers

Amare

Project Title
Awareness Raising about HIV/AIDS among Young Women

Mission:
To promote awareness among young women about prevention of HIV/AIDS to reduce High risk sexual behavior by behavioral change communication and interventions in Peshawar city of North West Frontier Province of Pakistan.

Project Location:
Peshawar-Pakistan

Project objectives:

i. To know about the knowledge, attitude and high risk health behavior/practices among young women of Peshawar
ii. To strengthen the capacity of 20 young women activists in Behavior Change Communication to enable them to play their roles as agent of change in Prevention of HIV/AIDS among young women.
iii. To promote awareness about Prevention of HIV/AIDS among young women of Peshawar by peer to peer Education.
iv. To reduce high health risk behavioral threats through Behavior Change Communication among young women of Peshawar
Activities:

1. KAP Survey:

A survey on the knowledge, attitude and high risk Sexual health behavior/practices among young women of Peshawar will be conducted to know the level of awareness among young women in Peshawar.


2. Training
a. Selection and Editing of Training Manual and Training Material on Behavior Change Communication and Peer to Peer Education on HIV/AIDS
b. 5 days Training for 20 Young Women Activists to build their capacity in HIV/AIDS prevention, Behavior Change Communication and peer education. These young Women activists will replicate the knowledge in their communities.


3 . IEC Material Development

500 brochures developed on HIV/AIDS Prevention and distributed among Young Women of North West Frontier Province of Pakistan.

Output of the Project:
i.KAP Survey conducted and report developed
ii.Training Manual on Behavior Change and Communication for Training of young women activists adapted.
iii.20 Young women activists got five days training on Behavior change communicational and peer to peer education
iv.500 Brochures on prevention of HIV/AIDS developed, printed and disseminated
v.200 young women approached and informed by 20 young trained activists.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION
The campaign intends to provide education regarding HIV prevention, human rights and gender through skills building and counseling to girls at risk. The program’s peer education will train at risk adolescents to become peer educators utilizing spots, plays, and songs about HIV related issues to facilitate discussions.

PROJECT JUSTIFICATION
Girls Empowerment Network organization has a concern that adolescent girls especially school drop-outs may be at particular risk of HIV infection due to earlier age of sexual onset and higher likelihood of sexual exploitation or abuse. Of interest on this project are educationally disadvantaged girls resident in urban poor areas of Blantyre mainly Soche, Chensomba, Zingwangwa and Chilobwe.

Educationally disadvantaged girls face a unique set of challenges and risks as they move into adulthood. This campaign intends to address the gamut of risks they are exposed to and the challenges they face in independent living, early pregnancies, parenting, life skills, mental and social health, lack of employment, violence (gender based violence) and homelessness.

PROJECT OBJECTIVES
• Increase in knowledge, skills and capability for vulnerable girls and young women to protect themselves from gender based violence, abuse and HIV/Aids through various assertive trainings conducted targeting vulnerable girls.

• To raise awareness on girl-child rights and censure and criticize societies’ beliefs and mores that devalues girl-child thereby creating a supportive environment for girl-child social and economic development. This will be done through conducting sensitization campaigns and community mobilization activities.

• Formation of girls’ network and collective groups to advocate for Girls and women rights and protection. The network is going to provide adolescent girls with a dialogue podium in which girls will learn from each other.

• To reduce exposure to risky sexual behaviors and HIV amongst adolescent girls and teen mothers by providing sustainable survival means or options and providing counseling services.

Project Activities
The following main activities will be conducted during the course of the project;
> Peer Education and HIV/Aids training.
> Sensitization and awareness performances.
> Production and distribution of information materials (IEC)
> Counseling and career talk.