HIV/Aids within the PSO association

For twenty years now, since the 1st December 1988, World AIDS Day has been commemorated worldwide. The day is about raising money, increasing awareness, fighting prejudice and improving education on HIV and Aids. Last summer at the 2007 International Aids conference in Mexico City, there were positive sounds that infection and mortality rates are no longer increasing. However, World AIDS Day is still crucial for reminding people that HIV has not gone away, and that there are many things still to be done.The impact of HIV and Aids on civil society in the South is great. In the last few years there has been more attention towards these effects at organizational level, through the facilitation and support to internal workplace policies and improved dialogue between donor and recipients. It proves effective to invest in organizational internal prevention and treatment. The question that remain unanswered are how best can we be flexible and transparent towards programme accountability. How do we support our partners to get access to the vast international Aids funds? PSO would like to highlight some examples of the practices of its members on the relation between the HIV/Aids epidemic and organizational capacity. PSO facilitates learning on these issues and finances projects or programmes of its member organizations strategically in order to learn and improve the quality of the interventions.

Active member organisations

Many of the PSO member organisations are active in the HIV/Aids sector with a great variety of activities and focus areas. The links below to their some of their websites might inspire you.
MCNV supports groups of HIV positive women, the so called Sunflower groups.
ICCO has some interesting experiences in Ethiopia with HIV/Aids workplace policies
CARE Netherlands is mainstreaming HIV/Aids into their livelihoods and food security programmes
Prisma members are very active in the fight against  HIV/Aids
Tear has various programma's on HIV/Aids. Under the same link, find how Tear facilitates innovating learning to develop HIV/Aids interventions (with PSO support)
VSO has a very comprehensive HIV/Aids programme in southern  Africa "RAISA"
The HIVOS STAR programme links HIV/Aids issues to innovate ICT tools 

Learning trajectory

PSO has facilitated a collective learning trajectory among its member organisations from 2004 to 2006. The aim was to support knowledge exchange and the development of good practice with respect to capacity building in times of HIV/AIDS amongst its members. A practical discussion and exchange was facilitated among member organisations on the role and position of northern and southern civil society organisations. In the article “Seeing the perspective” this is further narrated from an insider and outsider perspective.

Perspectives

Two former employees from the PSO knowledge centre, Roel Snelder and Russel Kerkhoven are narrating their experiences through an outsiders and an insiders view. In the article the authors explore various frameworks for organisations to take on HIV/Aids into their development work. Read the article and link through to interesting background studies and literature “Seeing the perspective. Using “insider-outsider’ dynamics to reflect on the civil society response to HIV/AIDS”, INTRAC Praxis Note No 43, August 2008      

Personal or Business

Another product resulting from the trajectory is the in 2005 developed DVD by Stop Aids Now (a consortium of 5 Dutch Development Organizations) together with PSO. The DVD sets examples on discussing HIV/Aids with partner organizations. This DVD is still very relevant and now being used by some partners of PSO member organizations. PSO intends to evaluate the effectiveness of the DVD  in the near future. Contact PSO to order a copy of the DVD at info@pso.nl

Strategic financing of programmes

PSO is supporting quite a number of project and programmes that develop capacities of partner organisations that are directly working in the field of HIV/Aids.

VSO RAISA Programme

One interesting example is the VSO RAISA II programme that started in 2005 in Southern Africa, with a focus on Namibia and Malawi. By the end of last year a Mid Term Review was done with relevant stakeholders.
The RAISA ll programme overall goal is  "More sustainable and qualitative response to challenges of HIV/AIDS in prevention, care, access to treatment and VCT with special attention to reduction of stigma, gender issues, PLWHA, orphans and vulnerable children."
 
During the review the programme set up and implementation was monitored using the quality indicators for improving the capacity development and mutual learning. Amongst others, the MTR has pointed out that the real challenge and added value is to consciously integrate an action learning approach which looks at the factors which underpin the successes and use these to influence how other actors approach their work in mitigating the effects of HIV/AIDS. Earlier “Capacity Building in Times of HIV/Aids” was jointly published by VSO, RAISA and PSO. The booklet is still highly relevant. It shares experiences on how the HIV & AIDS pandemic leads to specific challenges for partner organisations related to expanding services and organisations, adapting their core business to HIV & AIDS, developing systems for learning and sharing of good practices, and creating multiplier effects to counter the pandemic. 

Innovation in HIV/AIDS in Ethiopia

Through the PSO Innovation Fund member organization Tear has applied for financial support for an innovation project with 6 local organisations in Ethiopia. The project aims at using innovative learning methods (self organized learning, action and reflection, a learning network) to improve integrated approaches and enhance community empowerment in their HIV/AIDS development work.
(From project document)”….It is intended that this capacity building initiative will seek to increase local partners’ capacity to implement effective and sustainable HIV/AIDS interventions through an action and reflection process. The focus of this will be on supporting learning rather than delivering training and in so doing bring about an attitudinal shift and develop skills within partner organisations to maintain this development process.  At project level this capacity building will support partners to develop effective and sustainable responses to addressing the prevalence and impact of HIV/AIDS through local church and community structures.  At an organisational level the capacity building approach will initiate and support an action reflection process, whereby partners seek to learn from the work they and others are undertaking and then apply this learning to their work.  In this way it is expected that partners will be able to adapt existing approaches and innovate new approaches to addressing the prevalence and impact of HIV/AIDS……”

Self Organized Learning Method

The 6 partner organizations involved in the project are all church based development organizations, with interventions in the field of HIV/AIDS and long term partners of Tear Netherlands. These are the Full Gospel Church of Ethiopia, the Ethiopian Guenet Church, Kale Heywet Church, the Meserete Kristos Church RDA, Evangelical Fellowship Church of Ethiopia, and Wolaiitta Kale Heywet Church.  Since May 2007 these partners have been involved in the learning network, using new learning methods and hereby changing their ways of planning and implementing their HIV interventions. The group is being trained to use the Self Organised Learning (SOL) Method to create openness for the participants to organize their own learning, to be aware of the importance of measuring what is learned  (the product of learning) and use the system approach. On top of this “Dialogue Education” is used to support the above processes and create the learning network among the partner organisations.  Participants are positive on the achieved personal changes and their ability to act a change agents within their organizations. The project has changed their mindsets, facilitated them to understand the importance of a process based approach and system thinking and it has provided frameworks to use in realistically planning their HIV/Aids interventions. In October 2008 their responses were caught on camera by STAR Digital Studio Addis Abebe.
Listen to the participant’s responses

How does process mapping and dialogue contribute to more effective HIV Information,  Education and Communications interventions (Fragment 1)

How innovation has helped to empower local churches and community groups to take up their own responsibilities in HIV/Aids and how an enabling environment for dialogue helps learning. (Fragment 2)

Realising that working together with creative and innovative ideas contribute in community HIV/Aids work. (Fragment 3)

How the organization moved from an HIV/Aids service delivery mode to more empowering and facilitating community action. (Fragment 4)

How the new personal new ways of learning have been brought forward to the whole organisation  (Fragment 5)

What does innovation mean to the participants? 

Participants narrate what the innovative elements of the project mean to themselves, for example: New methods for more sustainable HIV/Aids interventionsChanging ownership and strengthen local responsibilitiesChange for training to learning Create a learning environmentInitiate change in implementation methods and pilot theseNew ideas and new approachesFacilitates out of the box thinking (Fragment 6)

New member organisation - Dance4Life 

In 2009 PSO will welcome the Dutch division of the international organisation Dance4Life as a new member of the PSO association.  From their international website: “Half of the new HIV infections every day are among young people under 25 years old. Not only are they the most affected by HIV, but they have never known a world without HIV. Dance4Life is an international initiative set up to involve and empower young people all around the world to push back the spread of HIV and AIDS. Young people are the future and they have the power to halt the spread of HIV and AIDS. By uniting all over the world and demanding change, they can make a difference.

Dance4Life provides them with this opportunity. It teaches them the important life skills they need to protect themselves but more than this, it inspires them to go out there and actually do something about it, to become actively involved – an Agent of Change. And our mission is to create a movement of one million Agents of Change by 2014.”

The specific and inspirational approach towards empowerment that Dance4Life is using will provide added value and experiences in the field of HIV/Aids to the PSO association. Dance4Life intends to utilize its PSO membership to further explore their own role towards the various partners, to learn how to strengthen them in different contexts and to facilitate strong local ownership. For more information about Dance4life: http://www.dance4life.nl