Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation Secure The Future
Technical Assistance Programme
(BMSF STF TAP)
Tanzania Development and AIDS Prevention
(TADEPA)
REGIONAL FOCUS / The districts of Muleba, Karagwe, Missenyi and Bukoba, Kagera Region, Tanzania.
SCOPE OF PARTNERSHIP: / Training in HIV/TB case identification and follow up; strategies and tactics to deliver services efficiently ; community mobilisation and People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) advocacy training; activities to empower grandparents and strategies to extend food security project to fishing districts.
OBJECTIVES: / To extend skills acquired through BMSF STF TAP to four districts to improve nutritional status and food security for people living with HIV; prevent HIV and TB trans-mission in high risk areas ; main-stream TB under HIV inter-vention through gender sensitive approach; improve working enviroment in Volunteray Testing and Counselling (VCT) sites by providing of youth friendly services among the youths
VALUE OF ASSISTANCE: / US$ 122,185.00
PERIOD OF ASSISTANCE: / Two years
BACKGROUND
Tanzania Development and Prevention of AIDS (TADEPA) is a Non-governmental Organisation (NGO) based in Kagera Region, Tanzania, working to improve the socio-economic well-being of the people of the country, including those infected and affected by HIV/AIDS. TADEPA has served the latter group for 15 years through several interventions undertaken autonomously or in partnership with other stakeholders. These include programmes for Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART), VCT and community-based prevention and care.
INITIAL PARTNERSHIP
BMSF STF’s work with TADEPA has had by far the greatest significance for TAP in Tanzania with several replication programmes realized through the partnership.
The collaboration started in 2009 when the two organisations partnered to implement a programme for community-based prevention and care of HIV/AIDS in the four districts of Muleba, Karagwe, Missenyi and Bukoba, in Kagera Region, Tanzania. A continuum of interventions - from primary prevention among the high-risk groups in fishing communities, border and the general population - was implemented to improve the health status of PLWHA’s through stigma reduction and nutrition promotion activities.
Target audiences were reached with the message of care and prevention through HIV/AIDS peer educators (PE), outreaches, VCT, Information Education and Communication (IEC) material and condom distribution. Training on safer sex methods is one of the major topics of the campaigns, providing an ideal opportunity to promote condom use.
TAP intervention was also instrumental in TADEPA establishing food mix production enterprises to generate income and supplement personal and family nutritional requirements also needy PLWHA.
EXTENDED PARTNERSHIP
The phenomenal success of the initial project led to BMSF STF TAP extending the partnership in 2011. The new venture is replicating the strategies of the first, still in the Kagera Region, however with different population groups: grandparents and youth. The project also integrates TB and HIV/AIDS onto one stream, giving priority to all of them in an inclusive approach, through various programmes. The goal is to iincrease the number of grandparents linked to support and care through a community-based network while also increasing the adoption of care-seeking behaviours among the youth through Youth Multimedia prevention initiatives.
Training targeted at youth covers reproductive heath, life skills, facts on HIV/AIDS, gender and HIV/AIDS, TB and male circumcision. Technical assistance is provided on social mobilization, monitoring and evaluation, leadership and good governance, how to conduct community events and developing a Youth Advisory Group (YAG) action plan.
Grandparents groups were set up in the districts of Muleba, Karagwe, Chato and Missenyi. The integration of grandparents onto the bigger frame of TADEPA activities has led to an increased awareness among this group about HIV/IADS and their rights as elderly people. TADEPA involves the grandparents in projects such as lobbying and advocacy on the rights, dissemination of the older age policy, psychosocial support, entrepreneurship training; skills sharing through exchange visits across grandparents’ groups. The groups are involved in various income-generating activities (IGAs) such as poultry farming, handcrafts, savings and loan scheme, and livestock farming
Needy PLWHA are still provided with various types of vegetable seeds to cultivate in their individual gardens, with the harvest used for personal nutritional needs and the surplus sold to generate income.
THE RESULTS
·  The project trained 223 HIV/AIDS educators from 15 fishing communities on primary prevention. It conducted 45 supervisor visits to trained PE.
·  Additionally, 51 male-headed and 165 female-headed households were provided with farming inputs for vegetable gardening and food crops.
·  Peer education (PE) programmes were held in 54 Care and Treatment Centres (CTCs) with 292 PEs trained on living positively, nutrition and food security.
·  39 community events was conducted in five districts with 13477 people reached
·  A total of 2550 male condoms and 2224 IEC material was distributed during the events
·  A total of 7293 were attended to through the mobile VCT programme.
·  160 PLWHA were trained in positive prevention from six groups of PLWHA to decrease stigma.
·  Through the Youth Multimedia HIV/AIDS programme, nine training sessions were held for 206 Youth Advisory Groups (YAGs).
·  Fifteen (15) cinema shows and nine drama shows were held, attracting an audience of 4082 people.
·  The activities of the organisation received a well-deserved shot with a publicity drive involving 23 international media houses. The event saw participation by the various internal stakeholders: 60 grandparents who displayed their wares in handcrafts and crops; 20 community educators who rendered items in song, dance and poems and the YAGs, who also danced for the visitors.
LESSONS LEARNED
·  The comprehensive nature of the project has enabled TADEPA to tackle multiple community problems with an integrated approach of primary health care.
·  Capacity building for grandparents enabled the organisation to plan workable IGAs to alleviate poverty.
·  Youth training and formation of YAGs improved the youth leadership by enabling them to practice HIV/AIDS prevention through the use of life skills techniques.
·  Cinema shows are a tool to mobilise the community and positively influence their attitude in tackling community challenges.