The Drum Beat 582 - Addressing HIV/AIDS Discrimination

This issue includes summaries on:

• ANTI-STIGMA communication.
• ViewChange commemorates WORLD HEALTH DAY.
• Addressing discrimination: WOMEN, CHILDREN, and YOUTH.
• Advertise your VACANCIES through The CI.
• Reaching MSM and TRANSGENDERED POPULATIONS.
• Want MORE? Visit a dedicated CI area and subscribe to our HIV/AIDS Click!
• FAITH-BASED approaches.

This issue of The Drum Beat gathers a small sampling of the summaries offered within The CI's HIV/AIDS theme site focused on communication-centred efforts to support advocacy against discrimination. Communication is a tool in the ongoing process of working against HIV and AIDS-focused discrimination. This issue of the Drum Beat includes a selection of projects, training tools, project evaluations, lessons, and more that bring in partners including faith leaders, organisations, marginalised groups of HIV-positive people, sectors of the population that suffer discrimination that pre-disposes them to HIV risk, communities, and educators.

COMBATTING STIGMA

1. Tackling HIV-Related Stigma and Discrimination in South Asia

This July 2010 report examines an effort on the part of the World Bank's South Asia Region to address the fact that HIV prevalence in India and South Asia is growing among sex workers, injecting drug users, and other marginalised groups - largely because of a widespread failure to prevent stigma and discrimination toward them. The World Bank's 2008 South Asia Region Development Marketplace (SARDM), "Tackling HIV and AIDS Stigma and Discrimination", involved: disbursing relatively small grant amounts; funding organisations led by and for marginalised groups; and supporting implementers in programme design, monitoring, and evaluation.

2. Facilitator's Guide for Training on HIV and AIDS Stigma and Discrimination Reduction

This guide, published by the Christian Council of Ghana (CCG) and World Association for Christian Communication (WACC) in May 2010, is designed to build the capacity of community members to lead a campaign on stigma reduction in their communities. According to the publishers, the guide, designed for participatory learning, can be used as a generic manual for any training to address HIV- and AIDS-related stigma and discrimination.

3. National Guide on the Integration of Stigma and Discrimination Reduction in HIV Programs

From January 2009, this guide was developed by the Tanzania Commission for AIDS to provide experience-based direction for programmes seeking to integrate stigma reduction. It is designed for use by a wide variety of stakeholders working in Tanzania's grassroots organisations, programme designers, donors, researchers, policymakers, media, and planners and implementers of HIV and AIDS activities at all levels to strengthen HIV stigma reduction efforts in their specific contexts.

4. It's All One Curriculum: Guidelines and Activities for a Unified Approach to Sexuality, Gender, HIV, and Human Rights Education

by Nicole Haberland and Deborah Rogow

This resource, published in December 2009, is meant to help readers develop sexuality and HIV education curricula with an emphasis on gender and rights. It is intended to enable educators to teach young people about topics such as: gender norms; communication and decision making; sexual consent and coercion; fairness and human rights (including sexual rights); power and relationships; preventing HIV, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and unintended pregnancy; puberty; and social change.

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ViewChange's Commemorative Online Feature and Outreach: World Health Day

In honour of World Health Day, April 7, ViewChange - an initiative combining global development video stories and new technology in an effort to enable individuals and organisations around the world to stimulate change - featured specially-curated videos on its homepage. To focus attention on the many stories of progress and the need for continued focus, ViewChange highlighted videos focused on a broad cross-section of topics and stories related to global health, including HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis (TB), polio, worms, maternal/infant health, community health workers/grassroots outreach, and prevention, vaccines, health enterprise/innovation and access to care. To access ViewChange, click here.

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FIGHTING STIGMA IN THE LIVES OF WOMEN, CHILDREN, AND YOUTH

5. Together We Must...End Violence against Women and Girls and HIV and AIDS

by Jacqui Patterson and Jenny Dresin, ed.

This December 2009 report, a joint document from ActionAid and the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), draws attention to the knowledge, institutional capacity, and resources needed to address the intersection between HIV and AIDS and violence against women and girls. Its aim is to stimulate debate and collaboration among practitioners and advocates about how to identify and promote effective prevention policies and practices that can be adapted to various contexts.

6. Breaking Barriers: Facilitating HIV Testing and Disclosure for Children and Adolescents

by Vaishakhi Mallik Chaturvedi

From December 2009, this India HIV/AIDS Alliance policy brief discusses: the challenges faced in facilitating HIV testing of children and adolescents and in disclosure of their and their parents' HIV status; the field reality related to testing and disclosure in the CHAHA programme, a child-centric home- and community-based care and support programme; a description of the operations research conducted; and a summary of study findings.

See also:

7. What Works for Women and Girls: Evidence for HIV/AIDS Interventions

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Advertise Your Vacant Job Posts through The CI.

The CI provides immediate access to 75,000 people in the network and these people often pass job opportunities around their networks and contacts. You can immediately post your jobs (within an online payment system). Click here or contact jsavidge@comminit.com for assistance.

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REACHING OUT TO MARGINALISED POPULATIONS

8. Lessons from the Front Lines: Effective Community-Led Responses to HIV and AIDS among MSM and Transgender Populations

This July 2010 report from amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research, in partnership with The Global Forum on MSM & HIV (MSMGF), profiles efforts by small, grassroots community-based organisations worldwide that are leading work to provide HIV prevention, education, care, support, and advocacy services to men who have sex with men (MSM) and transgender people. The profiled organisations reflect a broad and diverse range of geographic settings. The services they provide are equally diverse and include: condom and lubricant distribution and other prevention interventions; HIV counselling and testing; support groups; linkages to care; direct HIV care and treatment; legal assistance; policy advocacy; community organising; life skills training; vocational training; and media campaigns.

9. Social Discrimination against Men Who Have Sex with Men (MSM): Implications for HIV Policy and Programs

by George Ayala, Jack Beck, Krista Lauer, Rhon Reynolds, and Mohan Sundararaj

From the Introduction of this May 2010 report: "This policy brief provides an overview of social discrimination against gay men and other MSM as it relates to HIV. It also includes recommendations for concerted action and policy development. A review of literature that demonstrates the linkages between homophobia and vulnerability to HIV disease is presented with related examples."

10. Men Who Have Sex with Men: An Introductory Guide for Health Workers in Africa

Published in December 2009 by the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation, this manual highlights issues that are specific to MSM and provides additional training relevant for addressing this population group. The publication is designed for HIV counsellors and other health workers who work in Africa and have varying degrees of expertise in addressing issues related to MSM.

11. Translatina - Latin America

Translatina is an independently produced documentary that portrays the realities faced by transgender women in Latin America, a group very much affected by the HIV epidemic. Directed by Felipe de Gregori, the 90-minute film interviews with activists, health professionals, authorities, and transgender people from 15 nationalities to provide a look at the challenges faced by transgender women in accessing education, work, justice, health care, and other basic services.

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LOOKING FOR MORE?

• See the section of The CI site focused Advocate Against Discrimination (one of the UNAIDS Outcome Framework Priorities)
• Subscribe to the bimonthly DB Click: HIV/AIDS, which will update you on recent HIV/AIDS initiatives and information recently summarised and placed on The Communication Initiative website. Simply send an email to drumbeat@comminit.com requesting to "subscribe: HIV".

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FAITH-BASED APPROACHES

12. Are Imams in Egypt Prepared to Help Stop the Spread of HIV/AIDS?

by Omaima El-Gibaly and Khaled Hemeyda

"Muslim religious leaders in Egypt - known as imams - appear to know more than the average Egyptian man about HIV/AIDS and its modes of transmission; but there are major gaps in imams' knowledge about the disease, and their attitudes are not favorable toward people living with HIV." This May 2010 article discusses: HIV prevalence in Egypt; risk-related sexual behaviours in the cultural context of Egypt; stigma; the Cairo Declaration, a document produced in 2004 by high-ranking Muslim clergy; and, in more detail, the results of their research.

13. Call to Me: How the Bible Speaks in the Age of AIDS

by William Mchombo, Joyce Larko Steiner, Dennis Milanzi, and Alfred Sebahene

This February 2010 handbook from Strategies for Hope Trust consists of 20 Bible studies on topics related to HIV and AIDS, e.g., sex and sexuality; healing; death, grief and mourning; stigma, discrimination, and denial; church leadership; marriage; fear and anxiety; and children. Intended for use by churches, faith-based organisations, non-governmental organisations, and community groups, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, the publication was produced to enable churches and community groups to deal with difficult, sensitive issues related to the AIDS epidemic, and to decide on ways of dealing with these.

14. Umbrellas - A Training Resource on Religion and Sexuality Issues

by Peter Labouchere

Developed in January 2010 by Bridges of Hope for use by faith-based organisations (FBOs), this training resource is designed to explore and help reconcile religious and moral principles and teachings around love, sex, sin, HIV, condom use, and caring responsibly for one's own health and the health of others. The resource uses a metaphorical story to explore these issues.

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This issue of The Drum Beat was written by Julie Levy.

The Editor of The Drum Beat is Kier Olsen DeVries.

Please send additional project, evaluation, strategic thinking, and materials information on communication for development at any time. Send to drumbeat@comminit.com

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