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CAI News January - March 2008 Vol. 1, No. 1 |
Guyana Micro-Enterprise Projects
For many people throughout the world, attaining long-term economic stability can be difficult, and the challenges for persons living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) are often compounded. This is particularly true in the South American country of Guyana, where in an effort to provide PLWHA with economic independence through specialized skills and employment opportunities, CAI is implementing several micro-enterprise projects.
The goal of the following projects is to provide PLWHA and their family members with marketable skills that help ensure them a steady source of income through employment or entrepreneurship. An evaluation of the project will occur in March 2008 to determine if the project has succeeded in helping PLWHA establish and maintain jobs and small businesses while providing regular income.
A New Attitude
For PLWHA in Guyana – especially women – finding jobs is not easy, and opportunities to learn and develop a specialized skill that could allow for work through self-employment are scarce. To help women living with HIV/AIDS provide for themselves and their families, CAI, one of the partners working with the Guyana HIV/AIDS Reduction and Prevention (GHARP) project, implemented the ‘A New Attitude’ project. The project teaches women skills in areas such as jewelry design, woodworking, leather working, fabric painting, souvenir design and garment making and then assists them in marketing and selling their wares.
Institute of Private Enterprise Development (IPED) Micro-Enterprise Project
Because of restrictive loan requirements, many PLWHA are not able to access funding to start up a small business. Studies of micro-enterprise programs that provide opportunities to the poor have shown them to be successful in helping to increase participants’ household income, allowing many to move out of poverty. In order to provide long-term stability for PLWHA and their families in Guyana, GHARP/CAI has teamed up with IPED to provide qualifying PLWHA with access to small loans that can be used to start up or help to finance a business that will bring in a steady source of income.
Construction Training and Housing Project
GHARP/CAI has also partnered with Habitat for Humanity, the National AIDS Program Secretariat (NAPS), the Ministry of Housing, and Food for the Poor for the construction of five new homes for families affected by HIV/AIDS. Participation in the housing project was awarded to five families affected by HIV/AIDS through lottery in December 2007. Beginning in March 2008, 15 individuals chosen through different avenues – referred from family members and friends who are part of HIV/AIDS support groups or through local NGOs – will be specially trained and certified by CAI and Habitat for Humanity in construction; they will then assist in building the houses of all five families. After the completion of the five homes, those who were trained in construction will then be able to bring their new skills to the market.
Eco-tourism Training Project
GHARP/CAI and the Iwokrama International Centre for Rain Forest Conservation and Development have also collaborated to provide a three-month training program to five young persons infected with or affected by HIV/AIDS. In January 2007, the five participants were selected through an application and interview process. GHARP/CAI then provided them with a project orientation and sensitization training in HIV 101. In mid-January the participants left for Iwokrama, located in the central rainforests of Guyana, where they will spend the next three months learning skills in eco-tourism..
2007 UN World AIDS Day Speaker – Petra Berrios
Petra Berrios, Deputy Director of the People Living with HIV/AIDS Leadership Training Institute (PWA/LTI), spoke on behalf of women living with HIV and AIDS in the United States at the New York City UN World AIDS Day event on November 30, 2007. Berrios delivered a moving speech that wove her personal experience as an HIV+ woman around the 2007 World AIDS Day theme of Leadership.
Healthy Teens Initiative
Beginning in April, CAI will provide training and technical assistance to health care providers who have partnered with the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (NYCDOHMH) in implementing their Healthy Teens Initiative (HTI). The initiative was launched in 2006 as part of a multi-pronged effort to reduce teen pregnancy in boroughs with some of the highest teen pregnancy rates in New York City. Integral to this initiative is providing training and follow-up support to a continuum of health care providers that include pediatric, family, adolescent and family planning clinics to increase their ability to address the sexual health needs of pre-adolescents, adolescents and their families and caregivers.
CAI will work with health care providers from these diverse settings to increase the availability of high quality services drawing upon the NYCDOHMH's "7 Steps to Provide Comprehensive Sexual and Reproductive Health Care to Adolescents in New York City" (http://home2.nyc.gov/html/doh/downloads/pdf/ms/ms-hti-guide.pdf). The toolkit outlines how to strengthen services and make them "teen friendly." CAI will provide free training and ongoing support to all Healthy Teens Initiative partners. The HTI was launched in the Bronx in January 2007 and the work being done – and lessons learned – here will serve as a model when HTI launches in other boroughs in the coming years.
The Avon Foundation recently funded CAI to conduct a special evaluation of the Avon Foundation Breast Care Fund (AFBCF). The purpose of the evaluation will be to identify best practices in breast cancer recruitment, retention, and rescreening of women identified through community-based outreach programs. This project is being done in partnership with James Bell Associates Inc., a private research firm in Arlington, VA with expertise in evaluating national health initiatives. In 2003, CAI conducted an evaluation of the AFBCF which characterized the implementation experiences, benefits, barriers, unmet needs and prospects of sustainability of AFBCF-supported breast cancer screening programs. This new evaluation will build on the lessons learned from the former project as well as make an important contribution to the growing body of knowledge in best practices in breast health education and screening services.
In October 2007, the Office of Population Affairs (OPA), Office of Family Planning (OFP) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services awarded CAI a competitive four-year $2 million grant to become the National Family Planning Training Center (NTC). The purpose of the NTC is to assist OPA/OFP and their Title X National and Regional Training Centers in planning, developing, and coordinating training activities in order to enhance and support training of personnel to carry out Family Planning service programs. The Title X program is a Federal grant program dedicated to supporting family planning services throughout the U.S., with priority on serving individuals from low-income families.
Launching of VAT Online
To help new Victim Service Providers (VSPs) get the level of training they need to be most effective in providing supportive services to victims, CAI, in partnership with the National Center for Victims of Crime and Safe Horizons, Inc., spent more than three years creating Victim Assistance Training Online (VAT Online). Funded by the Office for Victims of Crime (OVC), VAT Online is a user-friendly web-based training program that allows VSPs to receive the basic knowledge and skills necessary to more effectively assist a range of crime victims. The comprehensive, evidence-based training program is free to the user and is available at any time from the internet. For more information, visit www.ovcttac.gov/vatonline.
Center for Capacity Development
CAI ‘s Center for Capacity Development (CAI / Atlanta) conducted grant-writing workshops at an event titled, Connecting Faith and Health: Building the Capacity of the Church, which took place at the Second Annual Capacity Building Leadership Conference in Columbia, South Carolina. Sponsored by the State of South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Controls Office of Minority Health, the conference drew attendees from counties throughout South Carolina. At CAI’s workshops, participants gained useful information and written tools that focused on enhancing their ability to seek funding for their social service programs that meet basic community needs.
The State of Georgia Integrating Peer Advocates Training Program
CAI was recently awarded a contract with the state of Georgia to provide the training program, Integrating Peer Advocates as Essential Members of Multidisciplinary Health Care Teams, to clinic sites funded by the Georgia Dept. of Human Resources, Division of Public Health, HIV Section. CAI originally designed the training as part of a continuing three-year project funded by Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) that works with Ryan White Care Act agencies. In Georgia, the Integrating Peer Advocates Program will provide sites with a four-day training and ongoing follow-up support that will allow the clinics to build their capacity of having peers work as effective and essential members of their HIV health care teams.
In a partnership with the Academy for Educational Development (AED), CAI was recently awarded a USAID contract to implement a Home Based Care (HBC) program in the Dominican Republic (DR). CAI will work with the Ministry of Health and local NGOs to establish and develop a key group of trained volunteers to deliver high quality palliative care to PLWHA in the border regions and region V of the DR. For this project, CAI will be drawing upon experience gained from the highly successful certified three-week HBC curriculum currently being used in Guyana.
The Salvadorian National Bureau of Family Issues and the First Lady initiative to address trauma in children and adolescents, Program Tenderness (Secretaria Nacional de la Familia – Programa Ternura) contracted CAI to conduct a two-day program titled: Psycho-Educational Approach to Address Trauma in Early Childhood: Working with Teachers, Parents and Tutors. This program, which took place in November 2007, was directed to 31 psychologists, teachers and mental health providers working in public institutions and was delivered as the last activity of the two-month diploma on trauma and childhood coordinated by the National Bureau of Family Issues with funding from WHO/PAHO.
Also in El Salvador in November, CAI was part of the First Central American Forum on Human Security and Prevention of Trauma in Children and Adolescents. This international event drew more than 800 professionals from around Central America, USA and Canada. CAI delivered the presentation, “Trauma, Vulnerability and AIDS During Adolescence.”
With funding from UNAIDS, CAI International conducted two trainings in Costa Rica in December 2007 on how to strengthen organization and management in governmental and non-governmental institutions involved in the fight against HIV/AIDS, a key point of their National Strategic Plan for HIV/AIDS. Eighteen members of the National Congress on HIV/AIDS (CONASIDA), with representation from the Line Ministries of the Government of Costa Rica, civil society, and the University of Costa Rica, attended the CAI training to learn ways of increasing their capacity of management, political will and advocacy in their role as the national body responsible for recommending HIV policy to the Minister of Health.
CAI also facilitated training for 29 members of the national network of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to boost their capacity in project planning and administration, including monitoring and evaluation. The skills taught will assist the NGOs in writing proposals.
CAPC Certificates of Appreciation
CAI staff members Michelle Gerka, Cornell Wrisby, and Megan Lane received certificates of appreciation for their outstanding commitment to the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) AIDS Institute’s Community Action for Prenatal Care (CAPC) Initiative. CAI has worked collaboratively with AI since 2000 to develop and continuously update a comprehensive training program for outreach workers and supervisors working with pregnant, high-risk women from The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan and Buffalo that are not receiving prenatal care. CAI’s clinical division also provides training for CAPC health care providers in New York.
CAPC is a broad, statewide collaboration between the NYSDOH Bureau of Community and Women’s Health, the AIDS Institute, the Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services (OASAS), and the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. CAPC maximizes resources in support of reducing mother-to-child HIV transmission by mobilizing existing HIV, substance abuse treatment, and maternal child health programs to collaborate at the local level. During the past seven years, the CAPC program has become a model for providing outreach and navigating high-risk women into prenatal care to reduce perinatal transmission of HIV in New York.
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