HIV/AIDS BEST PRACTICESDrawn from Best Practices Cases

United Nations

This is a distillation of some United Nations related programs to address HIV/AIDS. At the time of these programs, AIDS was claiming one in four in Jamaica, as high or higher throughout Africa. The governments were forced to address the issue because so many of their working population, men and women, were dying of this rapacious disease. The UN continues to work on AIDS. It continues as a serious world issue.

Ethiopia• Save Your Generation Association• Funded by German Foundation for World Population and

AIDS Control & Prevention• Change health behaviors of out-of-school people through

peer education

Notice in this plan for Ethiopia the target audience is very specific. Being specific with a target audience (target, get it?) makes the plan more appropriate to the audience and more likely to succeed. From the practical point of view, the kids in school will be getting other messages of the same topic, so the plan had to look for another needy audience – those out of school kids.

Main Activities• Puppet shows• Educational materials• Training of peer counselors and educators• Youth economic projects• Condom promotion• Advocacy

Puppet shows may seem simplistic but the audience for this plan is school-age kids. Puppets can do things that humans cannot and can talk about issues that people dare not broach. You may see a play about AIDS, politics, racy humor and sage advice, all in one. I saw a shadow puppet presentation of a saga of the Ramayana once and in the middle a puppet with crazy hair came out, calling himself Don . He then proceeded to make Monica Lewinski jokes! I’m sure the audience got none of it but we laughed hard at the absurdity of it all. Anyway, in some parts of the world, puppetry is mainstream.

Kenya• Mathare Youth Sports Association• Funded by private sector, Norwegian Agency for

Development, Ford Foundation, Population Council• Fight HIV epidemic by promoting healthy living, teamwork

and involvement in community improvement activities

Main Activities• Peer educators• Healthy living activities

Notice that both Kenya and Ethiopia use peer connections. Relationships are very important in this part of the world.

Thailand• Thai Women of Tomorrow Project• Funded by Thai state department and Canadian

International Development Agency• Japan, USA and the International Labor Organization

supported particular projects• Provide education for girls to delay/prohibit entry to

prostitution

Thailand had a AIDS epidemic on its hand with the amount of prostitution there. Education was the first defense (look up Cabbages and Condoms for an interesting story) but keeping girls out of the life in the first place was a close second. Extreme poverty drives families to take chances.

Main Activities• Rural primary-school children• Job opportunities for graduates• Volunteer teachers in six rural districts

Volunteer teachers serve as role models and build the all-important relationship necessary for passing information successfully.

Creating Tactics• Notice in each country, there was no use of mass media• Notice also the use of relationship building. Volunteer

teachers can also be identified as opinion leaders• Use only appropriate tactics as you create your plan