| AYISE |

BUILDING COMMUNITY COMPETENCE IN RESPONSE TO HIV AND AIDS PROJECT - BANGWE

This project, which was supported by the Southern Africa AIDS Trust, itself supported at that time by the Canadian Government, was aimed at behaviour change and education within Bangwe to enable the community to address the major issues of the blight of HIV and AIDS.
The project addressed the following core issues:
HIV and AIDS - this was the key focus of the whole project Gender Issues - sexual relationships and prostitution are vital areas to address when tackling HIV and AIDS in Malawi. In addition life-skills and family planning skills were imparted to young women and girls to enable them to avoid HIV and AIDS. Child Protection - teenage mothers were provided with motherhood skills, which will protect their child Livelihood Security - AYISE worked with prostitutes to identify alternative livelihoods for them, with lower risks Bangwe Youth Centre - this facility was central to many of AYISE's activities in this project

The Issues - click here to read more

HIV and AIDS is a major issue in Sub-Saran Africa and unfortunately Malawi is no exception. Traditionally is has been common practice for men to have unprotected sex, and to keep more than one sexual relationship existing at the same time. This has led to a rapid spread of the disease, and its crippling effects on the countries it exists in are exacerbated in Malawi by the pre-existing poverty and lack of infrastructure to support any health services.

80% of Malawians live in rural areas, and are mostly too poor to travel far. Thus providing health services to them would be expensive for any government, but the Malawian government has fewer resources at its disposal than most, and so many people live a long way from their nearest health services. Those in rural areas are often provided with health advice by traditional healers who are not medically trained, and have skills only in addressing long-standing illnesses, and not new problems like HIV and AIDS.

A further problem, in all locations - urban and rural - is the misconception that hospitals are dangerous places. This self-fulfilling prophecy discourages people from seeking western medical assistance until the last resort - by which point they are beyond any help and die at hospital. When their family and friends hear they have died at hospital it reinforces their belief that hospitals are dangerous places, and so when they get sick, they too avoid seeking out scientific medical assistance until too late...and the cycle continues.

As in many countries, developed and developing, there is a strong stigma against having HIV or AIDS. Consequently people are reluctant to visit a clinic to be tested for the disease, as others may assume they already have the disease. It is not uncommon for husbands to leave their wives if they find the wife has HIV or AIDS, which leaves the wife with little economic security in the Malawian context. As a result of the reluctance to be tested, there is an ignorance of sero-status, which increases the risk of transmission.

Thus it can be seen that there is a lot of behaviour-change work to be done, and results will not be quick, but we must act now to start the change.

The Project - click here to read more

PROJECT GOAL
This project aimed at building organisational and community competence in responding to HIV/AIDS. It would do this through building the capacity (knowledge, attitude, coping mechanisms, and implementation capacity) of both the communities and AYISE to enable them to become stronger, even in the absence of future funding opportunities.

Project Objectives

To conduct awareness and peer education on; voluntary counseling and testing, stigma and discrimination, condom use, and general HIV/AIDS updates through the youth sports trophy
To train girls in life skills and peer education.
To train teen mothers with life skills information and coping tactics.
To sustain activities for girls working in places of public entertainment, and other established girls’ fora, through meetings.

Revival of Girls Fora
This was a continuation of a previous project implemented in 2007 so AYISE regrouped the girls and discussed ways of strengthening it. At the time they were facing membership commitment problems including; lack of commitment, marriage obligations and changed opinions relating to marriage and pregnancy – against the advice of the mentors, the project and the forum.

Voluntary Counseling and Testing
Voluntary Counseling and Testing was provided by AYISE at Bangwe Health centre. The response and turn out of clients has been overwhelming due to a number of initiatives including community mobilisation campaigns. The awareness programmes and the services that were offered at the facility increased patronage of people regardless of age. This attracted other HIV Testing and Counseling service providers in the country, who came to draw lessons, mentor and even provide internships as part of perfecting their individual specialties.

Life skills training for girls in Bangwe Township
The overall purpose of this training was to build the capacity of girls so that they should be better positioned to make informed decisions and plan for their future. Specifically, the project aims were:

To equip girls with new vocational skills and provide information that is relevant to their work and helps them to make bold decisions in their lives.	Life skills training for girls at Bangwe Youth Centre
To expose girls to good approaches on how to communicate to their peers
To identify challenges that affect girls in their daily lives
To empower girls with skills that would help them keep themselves from contracting HIV, STIs and unplanned pregnancies

In order to ensure that the above objectives were met, the training covered the following:

Needs of the youth	Gender
Problems that affect the youth	Preventing pregnancy
Interpersonal communication	Relationships
Personal, family, and community values	Assertiveness
Adolescent growth and development	Self Esteem
Sexually Transmitted Infections	Decision making and planning the future
Drug and substance abuse

In order to monitor progress and share experiences, lessons and challenges bi-monthly meetings were conducted with the youth groups in this project

Mobilization of sports clubs to participate in the AYISE sports trophy
This project organized a sports tournament for under 14 boys and girls and during the games, HIV &AIDS messages were disseminated. Partaking in sports also provides a constructive recreational activity for children, and teaches important skills including leadership, teamwork, conflict management and communication.


U-14 sports clubs being selected

Mentoring Activity with CHECT - a support group for sex workers

OBJECTIVES

To equip four members of CHECT with the knowledge and skills to manage commercial sex workers programme.
AYISE to advise how to ensure consistent supply of condoms to commercial sex workers.
AYISE to advise how a commercial sex workers programme is coordinated at community level, involving community and faith leaders
AYISE to advise on management and rehabilitation of commercial sex workers.
AYISE to advise on managing the small business loans facility for commercial sex workers
AYISE to advise on dealing with mobile sex workers.
AYISE to advise on sustainable activities for sex workers that may be adopted or adapted by CHECT.

From AYISE, Victor Kanyema and Christopher Misuku anchored the programme as facilitators.

The Outcomes and Findings - click here to read more

Findings of the VCT clinic:

number of clients counseled and tested for HIV, for both males and females.

Note: Access to HCT service is high for female clients as antenatal mothers are referred to AYISE's HTC room. Most of the projects that work with antenatal mothers within the health centre facility largely depend on the results complied by our counselors, which are shared across the board with other partners at the health centre for other future interventions

TOTAL #TESTED	PERCENTAGE	TOTAL #TESTED POSITIVE	PERCENTAGE
Male = 857	28.57%	Male = 149	29.50%
Female =2143	71.43%	Female = 356	70.50%
TOTAL 3000	100%	TOTAL 505	100%

Male and Female Service use and Positive results

Assessing the future of small scale business under FOGIPE (Fora for Girls working in Places of Public Entertainment) group

During the monitoring of the small scale business, several challenges and issues were identified which made the businesses unsuccessful.

Competition between the FOGIPE and the landlord, who was also running similar business, resulted in FOGIPE failing to withstand the challenge and suffering reduced business.
Some bales of clothes were of low quality which led to the group failing to recover the resources invested for their clothing business.
Interpersonal communication amongst themselves was unprofessional in front of the customers. Sometimes they would shout at each other in the presence of their customers while at other times the leader would treat other members as her own employees in public. This reduced morale and impaired the future of the business.

Assessing partnership with CHECT

CHECT was a good choice of partner for AYISE in as far as commercial sex work activities were concerned. AYISE was able to learn from the experiences presented by CHECT while at the same time using information gleaned from discussions to create theoretical models for future use.

AYISE is very aware of how crucial it is to work with commercial sex workers. As a result we recommended that CHECT continue coming back to us with other emerging issues related to their work. Our work in this partnership shall help to address the HIV/AIDS problems affecting our communities.

OVERALL ACHIEVEMENTS
Since the inception of the project AYISE has recorded a good number of achievements.

More and more members of FOGIPE are settling down, by either getting married, gaining alternative employment and joining religious institutions. Some members are now employed by large local companies, with associated career opportunities.
A new set of girls has been trained as members of the girls’ fora; the grouping has made a good start with support from the community opinion leaders.
Most football and netball clubs that exist in the community, especially the under 14 girls and boys, have joined the AYISE SAT trophy tournament that is taking place in Bangwe community.
There is a dramatic increase in clients coming to access VCT services, due to motivated counselors who are sustained by SAT supported resources.

CHALLENGES
Despite the significant achievements, it is also vital to identify and address some of the challenges the project has encountered.

Late arrival of the contract agreement to serve as reference documentation during the implementation of project activities. This delayed other project activities from being implemented in a timely manner.
Closure of FOGIPE small scale businesses as a result of failure to compete with other competitors, and as per reasons mentioned previously.

LESSONS LEARNED

Small scale businesses in Malawi, particularly those that are set up with start-up money from organisations for the benefit of the local vulnerable individuals, are failing to register commercial successes according to AYISE's case studies.

There are various issues surrounding this problem, which drove AYISE to compile a list of the lessons learned:

A “handout syndrome” that has been experienced by so many communities has killed a hardworking culture amongst many beneficiaries. The effects of this syndrome are such that the commitment to repay the small business loan is significantly lacking among FOGIPE.
Lack of innovation is another challenge that has affected many small scale businesses. One possible reason being that the businesses choosing to sell exactly the same item or service as their neighbours, and so the competition is too high for any profitability. This can lead to significant problems when it comes to paying overheads such as rent or utilities bills.