We recently launched the first video in our brand new explainer series, telling you everything you need to know about HIV.
‘What is HIV?’ gets straight to the point and gives you the facts, explaining how HIV works and what happens if it’s not controlled by antiretroviral treatment.
The popularity of our news service continues to increase! We published over 25 news stories between Oct-Dec and had over 140,450 views of the news stories in total – that’s an increase of 49.9% from the previous three months (Jul-Sept)
Great to hear!
"Reading through testimonials of people living with HIV and AIDS has really helped me to understand a lot on what they go through.”
Our partner in Lesotho, PB, recently held a mother and daughters dialogue camp. They use this approach to bring young girls together with their mothers to break down barriers of communication and create a strong rapport so they can guide them on issues around HIV and sex.
Kate Harrison/Avert
It really helps to break down taboos and shame around talking about these subjects and helps young girls to be more confident that they someone to guide them when they have questions.
Did you know? We had an HIV take-over of the ELBI youth fundraising platform for 10 days over World AIDS Day. We developed two new fundraising videos and raised over £2,000!
At the end of last year we ran a promotional campaign for World AIDS Day, using user-generated content to encourage more young men and women to get tested for HIV in east and southern Africa.
We had some great results with over 1,775,000 people reached through Facebook and Instagram and over 87,500 views of at least 50% of the video! You can find out more about the campaign here.
Thanks for the feedback!
"This website continues to be a saving grace for those of us working in HIV and SRH in the African region."
Charity is 17 and is a member of one of the safe spaces run by our partner BISO in rural Zambia. Safe spaces enable young people to talk openly about HIV and sexual health.
Corrie WIngate
“I have learnt a lot of things and my knowledge on SRHR has increased and am able to make informed decision regarding my sexual health. I have learnt the importance of waiting for sex, how to say NO, my sexual rights and also how I can protect myself from contracting HIV/STIs. I am now assertive and confident and always believe in myself and I have also become an inspiration to my friends.”
We love getting this kind of feedback from our users!
“This was a very good and educative article. I found good material for my HIV youths and teens support group."
Hear from peer educators working with our partner in Zambia, BISO – we asked them what some of the barriers to sexual health for young people are where they live.
In this short video they are talking about early marriage and what they are doing to challenge it.
Our partner in Lesotho, PB, took to the streets for World AIDS Day with their youth clubs. Dozens of young people marched to demand that there is a stronger response to HIV locally to ensure better health outcomes for youth.
We're really pleased with the results from our latest set of qualitative surveys about Avert.org.
The data was gathered between May and July 2018, with 291 responses.
We’ve recently partnered with Savoo, an online fundraising platform where you can search the web, save money on your shopping AND raise money for your chosen charity - all at the same time! Just set up an account, choose us as your charity and you're good to go.
Tomorrow (1 December) is the 30th World AIDS Day! To mark this we’ve launched a new HIV testing campaign. We asked young people from across southern and eastern Africa to tell us about their experiences testing for HIV. Watch what they had to say!
We’ve brought all our HIV testing resources together in one place, so if you’re looking for resources to use and share this #WorldAIDSDay - we’ve got you covered!
BISO, our partner organisation in Zambia, is working with community leaders to challenge damaging traditional norms that negatively affect the sexual and general health of young people. During a recent community meeting, a village headman shared his thoughts on the work BISO is doing with them.
“It is despicable that for a long time we have turned a blind eye to the wellbeing of our young men and women in this community. It is such a shame that it has taken BISO to come and make us realise that some of the cultural values that we so religiously cherish are detrimental not only to the overall health of our young people but the entire community. I commit to vigorously campaign in my village against all cultural practices that impact on the health of my people.”
Earlier this year we ran a promotional campaign to publicise our new Young Voices educational animations to young people in Southern Africa. We've now evaluated our campaign promotional spend and the cost per 100% view (someone watching an entire animation) was only £0.02!
We hope you agree that's great return on investment.
All the youth coordinators from our partner organisations are taking part in a learning exchange this week in Lesotho, to share ideas and experiences on reaching young people with HIV and SRH information. Here they are discussing Avert's Young Voices materials.
The Digital team at Avert recently took part in a workshop with our web agency to kick start a new project to personalise the information on Avert.org more. We're really excited to be thinking about how we can give you more of what's relevant to you.
We'll be implementing a number of visible and invisible personalisation improvements over the coming months - so stay tuned!
Meet Martha, a 19 years old who is an active member of one of our partner BISO’s safe spaces for youth and adolescents in Zambia. Here she talks about how the project has helped her become more self-aware and confident.
“Before I was a very shy girl and had no information about SRHR. But now I am a responsible young lady who is able to make informed decisions and to negotiate when it comes to the issues of sex. I think that safe spaces have created a very good platform for adolescents and young people to interact, share information and learn from each other’s experience.”
