 |
 |
 |
Mainstreaming HIV/AIDSContext | Goal and Objectives | Activities | Achievements | Biratnagar Sub-Metropolitan City Strategy planning for reduction of HIV/AIDS-2005 | Biratnagar Sub-Metropolitan city Networking for HIV&AIDS reduction | Municipal HIV/AIDS Profile ContextTaking the lives of more than 20 million people and infecting more than 42 million people of the globe, the HIV/AIDS epidemic continues to spread without any sign of abatement. Its undeniable impacts are already burdening the poor countries by deepening poverty, aggravating gender inequalities, eroding the capacity of government to provide essential services, reducing labour productivity and supply, and putting a brake on economic growth. Though the Sub-Saharan Africa is the most devastated by the epidemic, the situation of Asia is also a deteriorating one, as the epidemic is growing unchecked especially in China- a country with one million people living with HIV, and India - where four million are living with HIV. The state of HIV/AIDS in Nepal is also deteriorating day by day in the form of concentrated epidemic. Bearing this scenario in mind and considering HIV/AIDS as a cross cutting issue and the need of multi-sectoral involvement in an effective response against HIV/AIDS; UNDP/ Nepal has adopted the policy of mainstreaming HIV/AIDS in its major programmes. RUPP, working with Municipalities with the objective of poverty reduction, in its second phase is entrusted with another challenging responsibilities of a) mainstreaming HIV/ AIDS into the municipal planning, and b) linking poverty reduction not only to prevention of HIV/AIDS but also to mitigation of its impacts. Furthermore, the potential roles of community mobilization process and resulting institutions - built by RUPP, and of its partner municipalities in an effective response against HIV/AIDS are reasons for the inclusion of HIV/AIDS into RUPP. Goal and ObjectivesThe objective of RUPP HIV/AIDS activities is to support its partner municipality for mainstreaming HIV/AIDS into their planning and also build capacities of the partner municipalities for an effective implementation of the plan. The over-all goal of RUPP HIV/AIDS activities is to reduce both a) the spreading of the virus and b) social and economical impacts of the epidemic by linking HIV/AIDS activities to poverty reduction. RUPP is carrying out its HIV/AIDS component with the under-mentioned activities. ActivitiesPursuant to its responsibilities of linking poverty reduction to prevention of HIV/AIDS and mitigation of its impacts, and mainstreaming HIV/AIDS into the municipal planning, RUPP is carrying out the following activities:
ToT on HIV/AIDS (May 25 2005)
With the objectives of enhancing the capacities of five replicating municipalities, ToT on HIV/AIDS was organised at RUPP Resource Center, Butwal especially for the RUP section staffs of Itahari, Inaruwa, Lekhnath, Prithivinarayan and Ratnanagar municipalities. Starting from May 25, 2004, the ToT was a three-day long event. Along with Mr. Prabhu Raj Poudyal, SSA, Mr. Bhawani Dahal from RUPP Biratnagar facilitated the training. Apart from these two, a team of General Welfare Prathisthan (GWP), an NGO working in the field of HIV/AIDS, also helped in the facilitation of the training. Taking the opportunity of the training, a review of the replicating municipalities especially of RUPP related activities were also done at the same time.
Oreination to Sexworkers (Dec 2004)
The World AIDS Day observed (Dec 1 2003)
Public Private Partnership on HIV/AIDS (Sep 2003) Similarly, a same kind of initiative was also taken in Bharatpur by RUPP and Narayanghat CCI, an orientation on HIV/AIDS conducted in Mount Everest Brewery / San Miguel Factory on September 9, 2003. The technical support was also provided by General Welfare Pratisthan (GWP) for the orientation. About 40 employees participated the training. Network Against HIV/AIDS in Biratnagar (Aug 2003) Taking its first assignment, the Network supported in RUPP lead awareness campaign of affixing Red Ribbon at the entrance of each and every household of Ward 17 and 22 of the Sub Metropolitan City. With the objective of making this campaign a grand success, students and TLO members were also mobilized during the campaign. HIV/AIDS Awareness in Bharatpur Jail (Aug 2003)
HIV/AIDS Awareness Through Hindu Purohits (Jul 2003)
Song Competition on HIV/AIDS on the Occasion of Teej (Jul 2003) Marking the same occasion, Kalika TLO of Khajura RMC with the support of Nepalgunj Municipality has also organized HIV/AIDS Song Competition. In a similar fashion, TLO wise song competitions were held in Hakimchowk, in Bharatpur Municipality. Thousands of women attended the program. A same kind of the competition was also held in Tansen Municipality. Similar competition has been organized in Birendranagar Municipality by Janakalyankari TLO of ward no 11 with RUPP support.
Radio Handover (Jul 2003) Awareness to Muslim Community2. Biratnagar (Jun 2003)
Inspired from the success of the awareness program targeted at the Muslim community of Nepalgunj Municipality, RUPP section of Biratnagar Sub-Metropolitan has initiated a similar awareness program to the Muslim community of Biratnagar. For this purpose an orientation program on HIV/IDS was held at the Office of Biratnagar Sub-Metropolitan. Religious leaders and social workers from the Muslim community participated the program. The awareness program was able to secure commitments - of empowering Muslim Community against HIV/AIDS - from some of the prominent religious leaders.
1. Nepalgunj (Feb 2003)
Conducting an effective awareness program to various communities of Nepal is a challenging task, as the country is with diverse cultures, languages, and religions. The diversity of culture, language and religions, often, in the case of awareness program, works as a hindering factor reducing the effectiveness of awareness program. Realising this problem, RUPP has adopted a strategy of using religious leaders and other traditional methods for its HIV/AIDS awareness program. Keeping itself in line with the strategy, the Programme in co-operation with the religious leaders of 15 Mosques of Nepalgunj has been conducting HIV/AIDS awareness in their native language. It is expected that about 95% Muslim male adults of the Nepalgunj area visit these mosques for their Friday prayer. More than 6,000 thousands people have benefited from this awareness program. In order to enhance the effectiveness of the awareness program, the Muslim clerics are carrying out awareness activities before their noon prayers each Friday. For this purpose, these 60 clerics were given orientation on HIV/AIDS before they begun these awareness activities on Mosques. Moreover, special hands out on HIV/AIDS in Urdu language have been developed. These hands out are being distributed on each Friday. In order to reach the population of Muslim children, HIV/ AIDS awareness program have been initiated in 7 Madrashas (Muslims traditional school). Similarly, some of the female leaders of TLOs are conducting HIV/AIDS awareness for the female members of Muslim community. Similarly the teachers and female leaders were given also HIV/AIDS training before they started HIV/AIDS awareness activities. Condom Boxes at Municipalities and other areasEmphasizing the importance of co-ordination for an effective response to HIV/AIDS, RUPP with the close co-operation of Family Planning Association of Nepal has begun to maintain condom boxes at some of the Municipal offices. Taking a lead in this context, the Municipal offices of Butwal and Dhankuta Municipalities are with condom boxes. RUPP has provided condom boxes for this purpose while the Family Planning Association of Nepal is supplying condoms. Awareness program initiated by TLOOne of the tangible impacts of the training on HIV/AIDS to the TLO executives is an emergence of motivation among TLOs to combat HIV/AIDS. As consequences of the motivation, some of the TLOs on their initiation conducted HIV/AIDS awareness programs. In an interesting development, in response to the demand from the female members of their community, Vijay TLO, DSP TLO, Bishwanath TLO and Shantinagar TLO of Nepalgunj Municipality conducted HIV/AIDS awareness programs at their respective TLOs especially for female only. More than 188 female participated in these awareness programs. Similarly, Pashupati TLO of Biratnagar, with the help from British Nepal Medical Trust and Family Planning Association of Nepal organised a training on HIV/AIDS for the age group of 14-19. How RUPP is carrying out HIV/AIDS related activitiesRUPP, keeping in line with its goal, objectives and activities, has operationalised the following strategies:
As reflected on the above-mentioned strategies, RUPP has adopted a new process for the implementation of HIV/AIDS related activities by integrating these activities into its community mobilization process. In this context, awareness against HIV/AIDS is being carried out through TLO- developed through the community mobilization process. To begin the awareness activities, the Programme has given Training of Trainers to municipal staffs, who, in turn, are training few key persons of TLOs. It is these trained key persons who are disseminating information on HIV/AIDS to their respective communities. RUPP also plans to use other regular awareness methods such as mass rally, use of local religious leaders, Information Education and Communication (IEC)etc. It is also embracing upon a satellite radio program, to be broadcasted in Nepali language by Equal Access channel, for awareness raising activities-specially against HIV/AIDS, but also covering other issues of Gender Discrimination, Domestic Violence, etc. Apart from these activities, one of the agenda of TLO regular meeting is also HIV/AIDS. AchievementsAwareness activities adopted by the Programme have begun to yield two-fold advantages. Apart from raising awareness of community on the issue of protecting from the virus, these awareness activities are also increasing understanding of community so that community itself can: a) assess the local situation regarding HIV/AIDS, b) identify vulnerable groups of a community and c) formulate plan as per the need of situation analysis. This, in turn, is giving a favourable impact on community mobilization process in which, community itself develops Tole Development Plan and Enterprise Development Plan. With the purpose of mainstreaming HIV/AIDS, community formulates HIV/AIDS related plans and includes into Tole Development Plan (TDP). RUPP is providing seed grants for appropriate HIV/AIDS related plans of TDP. Similarly, community itself is identifying the people who are vulnerable to HIV/AIDS and is also providing credit, training and technology transfer to those who are most vulnerable to HIV/AIDS through the process of Enterprise Development Plan (EDP). Thus, RUPP has adopted a markedly different approach in this respect, as community itself is made responsible for the total management of HIV/AIDS situation by developing its own HIV/AIDS relevant plan. Secondly, the people who are vulnerable to HIV/AIDS are economically empowered and diverted to safer alternatives. While remaining outside of the community mobilization process, the Programme is also developing capacities- needed for an effective response to HIV/AIDS, of the Partner municipalities. In this context, emphasis is given on human resource development. Apart from this, RUPP also helps mainstream HIV/AIDS issue into the annual and periodic plan of the municipalities.
|
