2010 has got off to a flying start! Africaid continues with its core work of providing psychosocial support for HIV positive children and adolescents in Zimbabwe. However each component of the programme is expanding with more and more of the adolescents becoming involved in the planning and delivery of different services. It’s an exciting time with a lot of work to do but we have a wonderful, committed team and 650 HIV positive children and adolescents driving new developments and progress. This newsletter updates you on our current work and plans for the year. None of this work would be possible without our three donors - Maruva Trust, Children First (USAID) and Zimbabwe’s Programme of Support (Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare, National AIDS Council and UNICEF). Sincere thanks to you all!

Community Psychosocial Support

The foundation of Africaid’s Zvandiri programme are 20 community support groups. These have now been running for over five years andthe members of the first Zvandiri support group are now involved in leading various activities on the programme, including one who sits on our Board of Trustees. Since 2004, Africaid has maintained that the success of these support groups lies in its support group leaders – 20 professional people (counsellors, nurses, doctors, teachers, social workers, pharmacists), whom are trained and experienced in paediatric HIV, devoted to the children in their group and commit two Saturdays of the month to facilitating a support group in their community. With quality leaders such as these, the support group meetings are able to provide specialist life skills training, counselling and of course lots of fun too for the children in the groups.

In addition to Saturday support group meetings, the support groups also meet mid-week and are visited by the Community Outreach Team for further training, recreational activities, counselling and clinical monitoring. We are delighted that this team has now been joined by Sister Felisitas who is mobilising children in communities who need HIV testing and counselling and ensuring that these children are able to find out their status and get appropriate support and follow up. She is also providing much-needed reproductive and sexual health services for adolescents on the programme. Furthermore this week we have started providing nutritional support for children in need, with thanks to Maoko Ane Tsitsi who are assisting us with the high protein porridge.

Our wonderful Child Adherence Support Team, comprising 10 HIV positive adolescent counsellors, continue to provide adherence counselling and support for their peers in their own communities. They are working closely with community clinics and this week we expanded the project at the invitation of one hospital in Harare who is establishing an adolescent clinic. Two of the CASP team will now be based at the adolescent clinic each week to provide counselling and training for the adolescent patients. The team at Zvandiri House are now planning a painting project to renovate the room where the adolescents wait!

Thank you to Maruva Trust and the British Embassy, Harare for establishing this community project between 2004 - 2008 and to Children First / USAID who have been supporting its expansion since October 2008. The Child Adherence Support project is co-funded by Children First and Maruva. The RSH and VCT service is co-funded by Children First and the Programme of Support.

Zvandiri House

Zvandiri House started small in 2005 as a library funded by the Leroy family and Maruva Trust.

However now under the Programme of Support, Zvandiri House Support and Training Centre is a hive of activity with HIV positive children and adolescents from across Harare attending each day for counselling, life skills training, the resource room services, recreational activities and memory work.

Maruva Trust is pioneering exciting projects here which we hope to later expand such as Zvandiri Magazine (led by adolescent editors), DigiART (a digital story telling project led by Linette Frewin), a dance programme (together with Sue Powell and the brilliant Tumbuka) and Youth Group (for our 18yr+). Maruva’s support also includes support for children with medical fees, drugs, school fees, nutrition and vocational skills training (e.g. stone art project for HIV positive boys).

Advocacy, Training and Capacity Building

As each year passes, we learn more and more from children and adolescents on the programme and realise their enormous potential for shaping the way in which society responds to the HIV epidemic. As Africaid evolves, it is clear that our role should focus on engaging HIV positive children themselves in advocating for the needs of positive children and building the capacity of other HIV positive children, their caregivers, communities, health workers and society at large. The Africaid team is often asked to provide training yet our focus remains on harnessing the energy, passion and determination of HIV positive children and adolescents themselves, training them as trainers, counsellors, advocates. Of course, this comes with a responsibility to ensure that they are protected from harm and this central to the way we design and implement activities.

Africaid now has 8 child-led training teams:

1) Treatment;   2) Child Protection,  3) Stigma,  4) Reproductive and Sexual Health,  5) Home Based Care,  6) Memory Work (Programme of Support),  7) Advocacy (Children First/USAID) and the 8) Our Story Team (Maruva / UNICEF).  The Our Story team has already trained in 15 paediatric ARV sites across Zimbabwe and we plan to expand that this year.

Another project which involves the adolescents themselves is our continuing work with Regai Dzive Shiri, under the Programme of Support. This operational research study aims to develop an evidence-based, community support intervention for HIV positive children and adolescents. HIV+ adolescents were trained as youth researchers and involved in the study. We will update you more when the study results are released.

This Year: It seems 2010 will be another great year and we thank you for your continued support. If you’d like to find out more, please do follow the two blogs or twitter for any ‘tweeters’ out there! Until next month.....

Best wishes

Nicola