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.

Summery of my project

The activities to be accomplished through this project are
1. Identifying 30 children orphaned due to HIV/AIDS to participate in this project.
2. Engages these children in income generating activities:
a. I and local administrators will select locations to host these children that will provide an easy entrance into the market.
b. 15 children will work polishing shoes
c. 15 children will sell items using mobile shops
3. Enabling these children to save a portion of their income in micro banks for further expansion and sustainable use.
4. I will work with Green and Wealthy Ethiopia (non profit making local NGO I am working with) members in tutoring these children since the children should be students to be eligible for this program since we promote and assist education.
5. Provides uniforms and other school materials to these children in order to facilitate their school attendance.
6. Gathers and visits with these children to help them build bonds to their community and each other using special events like holy days.

In the long run we do have plan to establish children village here to assist orphan children on permanent basis

VCT CAMPAIGN PROJECT

I.INTRODUCTION

VCT Campaign is a project made by Mr. Jean Luc UGIRASHEBUJA (GYCA member) in partnership between the Global Youth Coalition against HIV/AIDS and Rwanda Village Concept Project.
VCT Campaign Project aims to provide accurate knowledge about HIV/AIDS, to parents, children, and youth. Particularly, parents will have specific sessions to train them about strategic approaches that they will use for addressing HIV and sexual issues to their children. Children and youth will also be encouraged to ask for advice to their parents when they face a sexual issue. In addition, home visits and provided transportation will encourage VCT.

II. PROBLEM STATEMENT

More recently, there has been a growing recognition that more rural children and youth are particularly vulnerable to HIV infection than ever before. Besides individual behaviors, certain familial and social aspects (cultural constructs; parents’ inability to address sexual issues and HIV/AIDS to their children, gender inequalities, economic power, youth bad groups, demographic factors…) make children and youth more vulnerable to the infection. From interviews on Radio Salus during WITEGEREZA Campaign (a campaign made by Rwandan National Commission for fighting HIV) youth disclosed the inability of parents to discuss sexual issues with them as a major cause for new infections. And according to the UNAIDS 2007 updates, in Rwanda, the proportion of rural youth having sex with multiple partners is increasing while condom use is decreasing. Again Behavioral Surveillance Survey in 2000 (among the youth aged between 15 and 19) showed that minimum age of the first sexual relations is 14 years among girls and 13 years among boys. And condom use is of 10% among youth who are sexually active. As conclusion from WITEGEREZA Campaign, the most effective approach for youth behavior change must start on family level. These necessitate a youth targeted HIV prevention plan to address sensitizations, awareness and behavior change. Thus the VCT Campaign Project tries to engage, enable and urge parents not to wait to talk to their children about sex (HIV) and encourage them to make VCT as an entry point for HIV prevention and treatment.

III.PROJECT OBJECTIVES

-To involve, engage and urge parents in the battle against HIV/AIDS,
-To provide enough accurate knowledge about HIV/AIDS to parents, children and youth,
-To encourage VCT as an entry point for HIV prevention and access to treatment.
-To provide and facilitate transportation to VCT sites and post test assistance.

IV.PROJECT DESCRIPTION

VCT Campaign Project mission is that after the project, more than 95 percent of parents, children and youth will have enough accurate knowledge about HIV, AIDS, transmission, prevention, and treatment. Particularly, parents will have specific sessions to train them about strategic approaches that they will use for addressing HIV&sexual
Issues to their children. Children and youth will also be encouraged to ask for advice to their parents when they face a sexual issue. Again, more than 65 percent people from different targeted families will be facilitated for transportation to a VCT site to get tested.

The project execution will be divided into three main steps:

-Project preparation,
-Home-Based campaign and
-Follow up programs.

The project preparation includes contacts, training of volunteers and announcement of the Home-based campaign. The Home Based Campaign is an outreach campaign where health workers volunteers will make house calls in MUBUMBANO Sub-sector. Health worker volunteers will visit families in afternoons. During each visit, the volunteers will provide comprehensive information about HIV prevention, transmission, AIDS treatment, and session specific to parents to enable them addressing sexual and HIV/AIDS issues to their children_youth. At the end of the visit, volunteers will explain the advantages of knowing one’s sero-status and encourage family members to go to a VCT location. If they agree, the project will arrange for transportation and post-test assistance. The last
step of the project will be follow up programs. During this step, we will form anti-HIV clubs into three categories (parents, children and youth) and then hold village sessions in order to train more the anti-HIV club members so that they will continue to mobilize their neighbors for VCT after the project ends.

V.COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION

During the project implementation we will involve our target group. After being trained through family visits, and village sessions, we will form anti-HIV clubs and people who will join the clubs are them who will help to mobilize their neighbors. We will make this anti-HIV clubs powerful by training them on different important issues so that they will be able to continue implementing the project activities even after our project time ends.

With support from American Jewish World Service, GYCA has awarded its first five grants to help outstanding young leaders working on HIV to successfully implement projects in their communities. Over the course of 2008, GYCA’s small grants program will award ten grants of $1500 to e-course graduates. GYCA’s first grants will go to the the young leaders listed below for the following projects:

• Faith Phiri, Blantyre, Malawi: “Building Capacity of Girls to Reduce Their Vulnerability to HIV/AIDS”
• Amare Abebaw, Bahir Dir, Ethiopia: “Enabling AIDS orphan children to live a continuous decent life in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia”
• Christabell Opudo, Nairobi, Kenya: “Young People Living with HIV/AIDS in the Fight Against HIV/AIDS Stigma”
• Gulalai Ismail, Peshawar, Pakistan: “Awareness Raising about HIV/AIDS Among Young Women”
• Jean Luc Ugirashebuja, Huye, Rwanda: “Voluntary Counseling and Testing Campaign Project”

Over the six months of their project period, grant recipients will be posting regular updates from their projects on this blog. Please check back regularly to read about their projects’ process!

Applications for the 2nd round of GYCA’s small grants program will be available in the fall of 2008.

Project Duration
Phase I September 2007- November 2007 details on: http://projects.takingitglobal.org/togetheragainststigma

Phase II May 2008 -October 2008

MAIN OBJECTIVE
The young people that have already under gone through stigma, shame and discrimination training that highlights the forms of Stigma related to HIV/AIDS in the community will reach out to the members of the community by creating and improving partnerships and cooperation with especially young PLWHA support groups and other youth groups, by holding regular community dialogues, workshops and community activities together.

Compile information in a more youth-friendly way, edit and produce it to be to be able to be understood by all the community members in general in a bid to fight against HIV/AIDS

NEEDS ASSESSMENT:
There is a big gap between the uninfected and infected youth and this hinders the fight against stigma in the community and among the youth, making the PLWHA enclosing themselves in their activities, this is because a lot of young people are not really aware of their HIV status and thus are not committed to supporting their fellow PLWHA. These are basic facts that young people living with HIV/AIDS in Makadara Constituency, Nairobi, Kenya come across in their day to day interaction with their fellow youth.

Central Bureau of Statistics, Demographic and health survey 2003: Chapter 12, subtopic 12.3 focusing on Stigma towards HIV infected people states that education is strongly related to positive attitudes towards those who are HIV+. The proportion of women and men who accept all for measures increase steadily with education as well as with the wealth index

The response we have in relation to HIV/AIDS is over whelming with a lot of young people moving from the ABC (Abstinence, Be faithful, Condoms and Disease control) practice to SAVER (Safer practices, Access to treatment, Voluntary counseling and Testing, Empowerments, and Reduction of stigma) method while keeping in mind of their fellow members of the community who are not only infected with HIV but also affected. Much has been done on HIV/AIDS awareness but very little is done for PLWHA to gain support from their fellow peers.

The pilot project has been based on in Makadara constituency Nairobi, Kenya, where by primarily identified youth volunteers went through a training that highlighted forms of stigma and discrimination toward PLWHA in the community d to be replicated in other constituencies

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES

a.
The young people that have already under gone through stigma, shame and discrimination training that highlights the forms of Stigma related to HIV and AIDS in the community they will reach out to the members of the community by creating and improving partnerships and cooperation’s with especially young PLWHA support groups and other youth groups, by holding regular community dialogues, workshops and community activities together

b.
Compile information in a more youth-friendly way, edit and produce it to be to be able to be understood by all the community members in general in a bid to fight against HIV/AIDS

THE ROLE OF MY COMMUNITY
The community at large has been engaged directly and indirectly, Members of the community have taken the initiative to access trainings and health care services and Voluntary counseling and testing to know their HIV status. It is through his activities that their attitude was noted and the need to spread more information as the situation was within the community members.

Stay alive youth support group members have involved Makadara community members through advocacy activities and skill building workshops as well as organizing dialogues and trainings that focus on the fight against HIV/AIDS. Community stake holders and elders have been engaged in discussions and giving directions and guidelines on how to undertake activities

The major role of the community in this project is to exercise and to practice the skills and information distributed to them.