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RAISA YEBO September 2003
Regional AIDS Initiative
of Southern Africa/VSO
September 19, 2003
Dear Friends
and Partners,
This edition
will be focused on Mainstreaming. This is one of the key activities
and focus areas of VSO-RAISA. All RAISA countries have contributed
except for Zimbabwe, since at the moment there are no volunteer
development workers working in Zimbabwe.
VSO-RAISA has
undertaken mainstreaming through volunteer development workers since
the project began in 2000. Mainstreaming, integration
and the multi sectoral response are common terms nowadays
when discussing development work around gender, HIV & AIDS,
disability etc. and each organisation understands these methodologies
in a slightly different context. For the purposes of VSO-RAISA we
have taken mainstreaming to mean the overall concept of responding
to HIV & AIDS in development sectors where the pandemic may
not normally be addressed. Integration describes the concrete activities
within individual projects or organisations, which tackle HIV &
AIDS. It can be viewed as a process which builds on itself starting
with an integration activity which feeds into a mainstreaming approach
within an organisation and or sector which in turn feeds into a
multi sectoral response to HIV. In other words, responding to the
needs of those infected and affected by HIV & AIDS is embedded
in all plans, activities and budgets. Both integration and mainstreaming
directly build on and feed into enabling a successful multi sectoral
response. Volunteer development workers have been undertaking a
variety of both integration and mainstreaming activities and VSO-RAISA
acknowledge that integration is often a first level before actual
mainstreaming can take place. Our work in mainstreaming is work
in progress and the last 3.5 years has enabled us to develop our
approaches around ownership of mainstreaming work and around sustainability
of this approach. Some of this work is highlighted in our publication
‘Mainstreaming HIV/AIDS looking beyond awareness’ (VSO 2002). For
a copy of this please download from the web or contact your country
co-ordinator.
NAMIBIA
Workshop on
HIV&AIDS and Disability
Through
the efforts of three volunteers in June 2003 VSO-RAISA and the National
Federation of People Living with Disabilities (NFPDN) held a joint
workshop on HIV & AIDS and Disability. This has ensured that HIV
& AIDS is on the agenda of all the Namibian organisations working
for and with disabled people and that people with disabilities are
well represented with the AIDS service providers as well.
This initiative
has been extremely successful because:
- There was
a definite need identified
- It was not
just a volunteer driven initiative
- It has been
incorporated into the work plans of the NFPDN and the Multi Media
Campaign for HIV & AIDS.
- Because each
step has included the involvement of people with disabilities
and people living with HIV.
Katatura
Youth Enterprise Center (KAYEC)
KAYEC
is a training centre for unemployed youth, it teaches skills such
as brick laying, metal work, plumbing, carpentry and mechanics.
VSO has placed a number of volunteer development workers (vdw’s)
at KAYEC over a period of 8 years. At the beginning of the RAISA
programme several vdw’s working at KAYEC mentioned their concern
over the number of students and trainers who where absent from work
due to illness and funerals, they were also concerned that the youth
where being trained and then dying of AIDS. The vdw’s together with
the assistance of the RAISA country coordinator approached the management
to look at ways of addressing these issues and the outcome has been
to provide two weeks of training on HIV&AIDS into all the KAYEC
courses for all trainers and trainees. These two weeks of training
include basic facts about the disease, prevention, condom demonstrations,
visiting AIDS Service Organisations and Voluntary Counselling and
Testing (VCT) centres and meeting with people living with the virus.
Pupils no do not only learn a vocational skill but also a life skill.
(For more information
please contact Lisa.Davidson@vsoint.org)
ZAMBIA
Liz Montgomery,
Lundazi Secondary School,Maths Teacher, Zambia
Liz
and other volunteers established a three-pronged programme targeting
pupils at Lundazi Secondary School in the Eastern province. Activities
included a SHARP programme for boys aimed at discussing various HIV&AIDS
issues including contraception and safe sex. Another programme was
the Girls Empowerment programme (called kanyike wapwevo) concentrating
on gender development and behaviour change. This programme became
so popular in the district that education authorities decided to adopt
all the girls who participated in this programme as role models. In
order to give chance to all pupils in the school to participate in
HIV&AIDS activities, an Anti-AIDS club was mooted. The club grew
from strength to strength as more and more members were added to it.
Liz and her colleagues went further by holding a district teachers
workshop to help them initiate and coordinate anti-AIDS activities
in their respective schools. The workshop also introduced the teachers
to SHARP and Girls Empowerment programmes. To Liz Montgomery, all
this is not enough without backing up her lessons with some HIV&AIDS
key messages in all her maths classes.
(For more information
please contact Maurice.Shakwamba@vsoint.org)
SOUTH AFRICA
In South Africa
there are volunteer development workers working in AIDS Service organisations,
Gender organisations, engineering organisations, media organisations
and others. In many of these organisations where our volunteer development
workers are placed there are examples of mainstreaming. Here are two
examples:
Big Issue,
Nicola Jeffrey
Big
Issue is a magazine, which was founded in December 1996 as an income
generation and social project. The production of a monthly magazine
provides an income-generating tool to the beneficiaries who receive
50% of the cover price as income. Nicola Jeffrey has joined Big
Issue through VSO as a financial manager. One of the objectives
of Nicola in her placement was to mainstream HIV& AIDS. What
she chose to do is to implement a column in the Big Issue, which
discusses different topics relating to HIV&AIDS. Every month
the column has a different theme, in August it was Women and HIV&AIDS
and the September issue discusses Poverty and HIV&AIDS. Nicola
started the column in the June edition of 2003. It was decided with
the whole editorial team to start this column, so it was a participatory
decision. Nicola has received positive feedback from readers about
the HIV&AIDS column and it has increased the discussion about
HIV&AIDS amongst her colleagues. Further successes will have
to be measured at a later stage, also by looking at how many more
inquiries the AIDS Service organisations, which were mentioned in
the column, will receive.
Moretele
Sunrise, Harold Sibma
Harold
(volunteer development worker) works as a project coordinator at
the Moretele Sunrise Hospice in Temba. Moretele does a lot of home-based
care and counselling through out the community. The first two weeks
when Harold started he read in the RAISA annual report that a volunteer
development worker in Zimbabwe together with her colleagues had
produced a manual on how to care for terminally ill people in their
own homes. Harold has asked for this manual and will have it translated
into Tswane so the caregivers can use it in the Temba community.
Many volunteer
development workers do integration or mainstreaming without knowing
it. Without being an HIV & AIDS expert many volunteer development
workers give their contribution to HIV & AIDS integration. However
it can be a challenge since the volunteer development workers are
working in a new workplace and a new culture.
(For more information
please contact Carine.Munting@vsoint.org)
MOZAMBIQUE
Mainstreaming
in Xai-Xai
Maura
Murphy (volunteer development worker) is an English Language Teacher
at Escola Secondaria Joaquim Chissano in the Xai-Xai District of Mozambique.
Teaching a minimum of 20 hours a week to grades 11 and 12 or when
necessary grade 8 to 10, she has incorporated HIV&AIDS related
issues into her lessons. This has been done by including discussions
of topics such as; illness, TB, ways of contracting and preventing
HIV&AIDS through abstinence, use of condoms and having only one
sexual partner, into the oral English classes. Maura’s actions have
been catalytic in causing change towards HIV&AIDS within the school.
The students’
response to these initiatives although slow has been positive. In
the past for example, there were three to five registered pregnancies
a year. So far this year there have been none. The number of condoms
distributed, sold and found used after HIV&AIDS related events
have increased.
Best of all
has been the involvement of the students themselves in the combat
against AIDS. The head of the school explained how some of them
have formed an activist group called Geracao Biz (meaning occupied
generation) whose activities include debates, public talks, and
plays that inform not only other students but also the surrounding
community about HIV&AIDS. They also run a clinic dealing with
STDs at the school. .
Mainstreaming
at EICP
For
three years Elizabeth Longley (volunteer development worker) has
been mainstreaming HIV&AIDS at Escola Industrial e Comercial
de Pemba (EICP) where she works as an English Teacher. This has
been done through an HIV&AIDS drama group which she supports,
during HIV&AIDS Awareness Week – "EICP Free of HIV&AIDS"
which will run in two weeks for the third consecutive year and through
an NGO called AMASH to which Elizabeth advises. HIV&AIDS related
issues are also incorporated into the classes. Elizabeth is quick
to point out that it is hard to measure the impact such activities
are having because the extent to which people’s behaviour has actually
changed is hard to quantify. The following examples although minor
are quite noteworthy.
One of these
has been the increase in the participation of the staff in the awareness
week. In the first year Elizabeth and another volunteer ran the
Healthy Week Life alone. With each passing year staff involvement
has increased. Consequently this year more teachers are involved
than have ever been before.
Another indicator
of the impact Elizabeth’s efforts are having is that more of EICP’s
students do HIV testing at the local clinic than students from any
other local school. As noted by a GATV (VCT) Advisor this has been
due to the increased HIV&AIDS awareness efforts of the teachers
at EICP.
(For more info
contact Etelvina.Mahanjane@vsoint.org)
MALAWI
In Malawi, the
National strategic plan mandates all government ministries and encourages
the private sector to mainstream HIV&AIDS in their ministries
and organisations. In many cases, there are no clear guidelines and
strategies for mainstreaming HIV&AIDS apart from a few lines or
paragraphs of HIV&AIDS in the plans. The advantage of this is
that it gives volunteers a starting point but does not necessarily
say how they can actually take on HIV&AIDS initiatives. Many of
our volunteers have responded to HIV&AIDS in their workplaces
and communities by carrying out concrete interventions to address
the issues related to HIV&AIDS. For instance a volunteer at a
Wildlife and Environmental Education Centre deliberately incorporated
HIV&AIDS components in his environmental lessons to students and
set up an HIV&AIDS resources corner in the Library. Whether that
is mainstreaming or integration is subject to discussion.
Malawi has had
some fantastic examples of volunteers mainstreaming/integrating
HIV&AIDS. A remarkable mainstreaming activity by a volunteer
Lameck Mwape who was working as a Laboratory Technician at mission
institution- St Luke's Hospital, successfully set up a VCT centre
within the mainstream laboratory and put up structures for pre-counselling
and post counselling. About a year after the volunteer left, the
clinic is still running VCT activities, clients numbers have significantly
increased and the services have expanded to other satellite centres
in the area. The VCT clinic has now become part of the hospitals
main activities.
Another example
of integration is where a volunteer teaching at a Community Day
Secondary School organised for the first time an Anti AIDS club,
which looked at sensitising fellow students and the community on
HIV&AIDS. The volunteer managed to convince the paramount chief
of the area and went on to organise a workshop for traditional chiefs
to discuss the issues about HIV&AIDS and how it is related to
cultural practices of the region; and the importance of recognising
that some cultural practices are contributing to the spread of HIV&AIDS.
The chiefs being the custodians of culture are the right target
group for behaviour change in the times of HIV&AIDS. This was
a successful workshop, which the chiefs felt it was an eye opener
and acknowledged that cultural practices are really a threat in
the fight against the epidemic. It is hoped that the chiefs are
still practising what they learnt at the workshop and the message
reached the people at the grassroots.
It should be
acknowledged that volunteer development workers are at the right
position to mainstream HIV&AIDS and carry out concrete HIV&AIDS
activities in the workplace or communities as they mostly look at
issues from above the community. But it should also be acknowledged
that they often find it difficult to get started, as they do not
have sufficient knowledge of various aspects of the societies that
they are working in.
(For more information
contact Steve.Tahuna@vsoint.org)
Overall Key
areas of learning for VSO-RAISA around mainstreaming have been:
- Partnerships:
these are key to maintaining and sustaining a mainstreaming approach.
- Training
and support are crucial for both partners and volunteer development
workers in order for mainstreaming to take place and lessons to
be shared.
- Facilitation
and commitment will lead to partnerships within the local
community; will promote ownership and motivation around mainstreaming.
- Monitoring
and Evaluation are essential if VSO-RAISA’s work around mainstreaming
is to progress and for VSO, the partner organisation and the volunteer
development worker to learn from this experience, this can then
be shared with new partners and volunteers and add to the body
of knowledge around mainstreaming HIV&AIDS.
RESOURCES
Lessons Learned
in Mainstreaming HIV/AIDS
A series of flyers designed by Oxfam to assist organisations in
mainstreaming the issue of HIV/AIDS into their core business programmes,
without losing their original focus. Sept 01
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/hivaids/resources.html
Visit
the VSO Zimbabwe fact sheet
Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.
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