AVERT is an international AIDS charity with HIV & AIDS projects in southern Africa. Our projects have a particular emphasis on sustainable, cost-effective community responses to HIV & AIDS. Each HIV and AIDS project is developed and run according to the specific needs of the area by people who are local to the area. This page outlines some of AVERT's HIV & AIDS projects in sub-Saharan Africa.
back to top South Africa
Sisonke
Based in the poor Eastern Cape province of South Africa, Sisonke is a large community based project driven by the energy and insight of small local community groups who are responding to evolving local needs and challenges. Sisonke works to strengthen and empower these groups to develop their HIV/AIDS interventions, and supports them in providing education and care in their communities.
Local
community group providing lunch for children affected by AIDS,
Sisonke Project
Community
action growing vegetables to feed the AIDS orphans at the
Sisonke project
Through these local groups, Sisonke is reaching out to, and working to meet the needs of over 800 orphans and vulnerable children, who are being looked after in the community. Training and support is being provided for the extended families, guardians and care-givers of these children in terms of HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, support and care activities, as well as helping them meet their own needs through income generation and psychosocial support. Sisonke is also helping local people affected by, and infected with, HIV and AIDS to attain long-term sustainability through increased food security. Groups of local people are contributing their own time to establish gardens and community feeding schemes for the most vulnerable and AVERT has helped to provide some of the tools for these community initiatives, such as cooking stoves, large pots and gardening tools.
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A video of the Gogo Getters, a group of grandmothers in the Eastern Cape, South Africa
An increasing proportion of care for people with AIDS is having to be provided at home by immediate family and friends, so Sisonke is helping them to have training which educates them on how to care for sick and disabled people at home. This includes learning about proper opportunistic infections, pain control and nutrition, as well as staying safe as a carer. The people who have received training then pass on their skills to other carers in their area.
Older people are increasingly playing a major role in caring for younger adults sick with AIDS, and for their orphaned grandchildren. Through Sisonke a number of elderly care-givers came together and created the ‘Gogogetters’ (gogo is Xhosa for grandmother) group. The ‘Gogogetters’ support each other with the skills and knowledge they need to care for their orphaned grandchildren.
Home-Based Care Research Project
AVERT co-funds a three-year research project (2010-2012) on quality of care in the home for people living with HIV and AIDS in rural South Africa. The project is implemented by the Rural AIDS & Development Action Research Programme (RADAR), affiliated to the University of Witwatersrand. AVERT was keen to support this project as it has a strong potential for advocacy to strengthen home-based care, and ultimately health systems, in South Africa.
South Africa’s National Strategic Plan for HIV & AIDS (2007-2011) recognised health system strengthening as key to expanding access to services and places specific emphasis on the role of community care workers. It was in this context that RADAR carried out a situational analysis to provide a contextual overview of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of home-based care (HBC) at all levels (NGOs, government, policy), to form the basis of their study.
The main objective of the RADAR research project is to examine the relationship between the community care worker, primary care giver and the client, while also investigating the quality of care provided to clients, using the Bushbuckridge Sub-district as the study sample. The framework used measures the quality of care taking into account how important services are to beneficiaries (acceptability) and the frequency (availability) of services.
The project provides updates on their research at meetings held with high-level stakeholders to report on key learning and is regularly invited to participate in regional and national health policy debates. The project has also been approached for their research to inform current healthcare reforms, particularly around access to healthcare.
Results of this study will be used to inform opportunities for capacity-building and health system strengthening so as to better position home based care to relieve the burden on the formal health system.
back to top Malawi
Umunthu Foundation
The Umunthu Foundation is a community organisation based in Bangwe township, Blantyre, Malawi. AVERT has provided support to Umunthu to help re-establish the HIV testing clinic at the local Bangwe Health centre and the Foundation’s own clinic. In the first nine months since the project started, 8569 people have been tested for HIV, free of charge. Clients who test positive for HIV are referred to the health centre for follow up and treatment, or to prevention of mother to child transmission services.
People living with HIV (PLHIV) and home based care givers benefit from weekly support meetings to discuss issues affecting people living with HIV, such as side effects of antiretroviral drugs (ARVs), the importance of nutrition and treatment adherence for people on ARVs, and the challenges of stigma and discrimination.
Umunthu Foundation also provides treatment services for minor side effects of antiretroviral treatment (ART), such as nausea, and treatment / referrals for opportunistic infections linked to HIV.
Umunthu also supports HIV prevention in local schools by helping to facilitate group discussions during school assemblies and anti-AIDS youth club meetings. Educational materials are distributed in schools and are available at the Umunthu's office for young people to read. Umunthu has worked hard to make its services accessible to young people, and prides itself on the uptake and enthusiasm within the local community.
The
Umunthu Foundation office and VCT clinic, Blantyre,
Malawi
Umunthu project
home-based carers support group
back to top New HIV & AIDS projects
Due to funding constraints AVERT is unfortunately not able to fund any new projects, or accept project proposals until at least July 2012. Please do not send in any applications for funding until that date.
