Strategic Area:                             HIV/AIDS

Alignment with strategic plan:        Democratic governance

Project Name:                              Programme for Specific Groups, Phase 2

Duration:                                              June 2007 – May 2010

Project Summary:
The Programme for Specific Groups project has been implemented with support from the Global Fund since 2005. The first phase of this Programme ran from June 2005 – May 2007. Currently, phase two of this Programme is being implemented since June 2007. Since sexually transmitted infections (STIs) such as chlamydia, syphilis and gonorrhoea are at epidemic proportions in a number of Somali population groups, and despite the relatively low HIV prevalence in the Somali population, there are many signs pointing to a steady increase in prevalence rates. For these reasons, a behaviour change communication (BCC) toolkit was designed during Phase One of the Global Fund programme to train a wide range of community workers as peer educators, in order for them to communicate messages on HIV/AIDS and STIs, to their communities in urban, peri-urban, and (remote) rural areas.

The necessity of the BCC toolkit was established during early 2006, when the programme utilized other behaviour centred approaches, such as, problem identification and the identification of key risk behaviours. Somali people’s personal risk assessment was found to be poor. Furthermore, even though HIV/AIDS awareness is adequate amongst societies who inhabit large cities, HIV/AIDS programmes have not reached those communities residing in (remote) rural areas. Additionally, amongst those who are aware of the disease, their perception of HIV transmission is still not adequate.

Finally, the BCC programme is aiming, through its toolkit, to increase the social support for safe behaviours, which will reduce STIs and HIV/AIDS, in the three zones of Somalia. Thus, during the first two quarters of phase 2, Year 3,  the main strategy used by the BCC programme to encourage and facilitate behaviour change, was to conduct workshops for the training of trainers (TOTs), hence the training of peer educators, as well as applying the toolkit to  the communities, thus reaching a large number of people through peer education. The BCC Toolkit thus serves as a comprehensive resource document for peer education trainers as well as for peer educators undertaking peer education

Project outputs:
•    Development of BCC toolkit with training guidelines for trainers, including training curriculum, information          Cards, Community Participation Cards, Activity Cards and Risk Assessment Checklist
•    Conduct workshops for ToT training
•    Peer education

Implementation Description and Achievements:
Continuing on the work in phase one the BCC toolkit and training programme will be scaled up and decentralised. Training programs will be rolled out for peer educators from a diverse range of groups, including marginalised and vulnerable groups and refresher training held for existing TOT and previous trainees.  BCC peer educators will then reach people from specific groups including sex workers, clients of sex workers, truck drivers etc. Networks are established to support the TOT and trained peer educators, and provide ongoing capacity building.
During the last two quarters, 600 police recruits were reached during a one day HIV/AIDS awareness event. In addition, the Peer Education Network in Puntland transformed itself into a HIV/AIDS Umbrella Network - Badbaado. Its members include a variety of different NGOs. Badbaado will ensure that HIV/AIDS activities of NGOs become more coordinated and serves as an information sharing and capacity building organisation. Also, Religious leaders came together to form a network. This network is also a member of Badbaado.