HOPE

AIDS is the worst epidemic in human history. Every country in the world have citizens infected with the HIV virus leading to AIDS. Since the epidemic was identified some 20 years ago, 60 million people have been infected, 20 million have died and 14 million children have been orphaned. 28.5 million people living in Southern Africa are infected. In some countries, we talk about 20-35 % of the adult population being infected. These are only a few of the horrible figures surrounding this pandemic. Every project in Humana People to People feel the consequences of the epidemic, and it is a priority task at every project to work to stop the spreading of the epidemic and care for the people infected.

In 1996, Humana People to People started HOPE Centers, specifically working to fight AIDS. Today there are 10 HOPE Centers in Angola, Mozambique, Zambia, Malawi and Namibia. Each of them have a number of smaller HOPE Stations placed around as satellites.

The HOPE Center is a place open to all people. Here they get information and encouragement. People can take part in Positive Living Courses, courses on health and hygiene, on nutrition, on home based care of sick people, etc. There is also a voluntary counseling and testing unitstaffed with a nurse and a doctor. From the HOPE Center there are numerous activities, actions and campaigns organized in order to reach out to all the people in the community.

HOPE - AIDS AID PROGRAM

Here are some examples of tasks taken out of a job description for a Development Instructors in HOPE:

· Make sure that all the activities described in the Outreach Program are taking place and continuously developing. E.g: making sure that all schools and workplaces in the area have Clubs of Hope and every compound have a youth club.

· Make sure that the Hope Station develops into a cultural center. Plan, organize and implement cultural evenings at the center, sports programs every afternoon, video evening once a week, two new activities each month that you come up with yourself.

· Make the Positive Living Movement visible and lively in your Zone. Start Positive Living Clubs in every compound and see to that they have good programs.
· Mobilize 250 people for HIV testing in your Zone. Organize a door-to-door campaign and the counseling and testing.

HOPE Humana

In the early 1980s when the first cases of AIDS were reported, Humana People to People reacted instantly by issuing instructions on how to protect oneself against contaminated blood, syringes and unprotected sex. As we grew towards the late 1980s HIV/AIDS became real and painful as more and more people died of the disease. Humana People to People started organising HIV/AIDS awareness campaigns in countries where we had projects running.

In the early 1990s we promoted voluntary counselling and testing and had first experience on how to support people living with HIV on a larger scale. There was no structured "Positive Living" program yet, but work was done on relieving workloads, improving diets, and basically trying to make people’s last days as comfortable as possible. In the mid-1990s the fight against the spread of the disease became part of our lives at all projects under Humana People to People. The need for a specific line of projects targeting the HIV/Aids epidemic gave birth to the HOPE projects.

In 1996 the first HOPE project was established in Ndola, Zambia. The project aimed at helping people infected and affected with HIV/AIDS. During this period, treatment for people with HIV in Africa was out of reach, denial was the most prevalent response to the disease and most people had no idea of how to cope with the disease. From the experienced derived the HOPE project in Zambia, Humana HOPE projects started budding in the other countries. To date, HOPE Humana projects are in Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Angola, India, Malawi, Namibia and South Africa. It was agreed as policy that all Humana People to People projects should have an active policy for combating HIV/AIDS.

HOPE projects establish community-based centres with programs involving both the infected and affected people in the fight against HIV/AIDS. HOPE centres are established in the middle of residential areas and all people are welcome to come and be tested, talk, read, be counselled, join clubs or work as volunteers. Various platforms are set to give communities a chance to talk about HIV/AIDS. Youth’s discussions are organised and workshops are held for the communities. Networks and alliances are formed with other departments and organisations that are involved in the fight against HIV/AIDS. This has helped in sharing resources and reaching out to more people.

HOPE Humana projects differ from country to country. HOPE projects are open to everyone thus for people who have tested HIV positive, for people who have not yet decided to know their own status, and for people who want to assist in the caring for those affected by HIV/AIDS.

HOPE PROGRAM OPERATES WITHIN A FRAMEWORK OF FIVE LINES OF ACTIVITIES

• First line of activity is Contact and Training Services. It is also referred to as the HOPE Centre. This is a crucial part of HOPE projects and it is open to all who wish to get information, assistance or for those who wish to join as volunteers in one of the many outreach programs. HOPE Centres implement a number of training workshops and seminars and aims at building capacity in HOPE’s own staff and volunteers. Its also aims at building capacity in community based organizations such as church groups, youths groups and community based HIV/AIDS task force. HOPE runs training sessions for other organizations and programs such as training nurses in Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission, training workers like peer Educators and training company managers in making company policy on HIV/AIDS.

• Second line of activity is Health Services. These are usually provided at the HOPE Centre. People can come to the Centre and have access to health services like treatment and advice on sexually transmitted diseases as well as getting tested for HIV. Many HOPE Centres have testing facilities, and where this is not the case, the HOPE Centre has established a co-operation with a nearby Voluntary Counselling and Testing Centre (VTC). People coming to the HOPE Centre can be referred for testing there, and they will then be able to come back to the HOPE Centre to participate in the many different post-test activities, no matter the result of the rest.

Health service centres train counsellors, who assists those who have tested positive to find a way forward with their lives. The counsellors undergo continuous training to improve their counselling skills. The centres provide programs on how to live a long and productive life when one has tested positive. HOPE Centres have accumulated a lot of knowledge about positive living with practical rules and guidelines of how to boost one’s immune system and fight the HIV virus.
The project has introduced a Positive Living Course of 3 to 6 months, two mornings or afternoons a week, to enable the participants to come to terms with the disease. Another course, Positive Living Advocacy Training is for people living with HIV who wish to mobilize other people who are HIV positive to form groups in their community, and to teach them about positive living. Positive Living Advocates are willing to share their HIV status with others and give real life testimonies about how they are living positively the disease.

• Operational Research is an important activity in HOPE. Continuous research is carried out for people to learn more about HIV/AIDS. Operational Research has resulted in the Positive Living Course, the Positive Living Advocacy Course, the Concept of Life Prolonging Counselling course and many more. At times Operational Research has led HOPE projects to join hands with research organizations to gather information that is crucial for the development of the response to HIV/AIDS.

• Opinion Forming Activities, seek to influence decision makers and opinion leaders to support the fight against HIV/AIDS actively. This is done through creating good examples, inviting prominent persons to the HOPE Centre, organizing seminars for community leaders, company directors and local politicians. The Outreach Program aims at creating alliances with many people: teachers and students, workers and management in the work-places, training of home based care givers, formation of garden clubs for improved nutrition and many more. Opinion Forming Activities include publishing of newsletters, pamphlets and posters, participating in radio programs, holding public speeches and raising the issue of HIV/AIDS in many gatherings and forums. Another element of these programs is that they seek to address poverty which one of the major factors in winning the struggle against AIDS.

• In the Outreach Program, HOPE projects seek to create alliances and synergies in continuous mobilisation of people to adapt safer sexual behaviour and to be part of the community’s response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The Outreach Program reach out to children and youths in schools and workplaces, people townships and villages, and organizes them in clubs with trained Peer Educators and Peer Counsellors.

As the HOPE programs developed more communities expressed their need for HOPE services and activities. This prompted the creation of HOPE stations, which are smaller satellites, compared to the HOPE Centres. The HOPE Stations are usually situated in smaller towns and townships where they offer information, training and run out reach programs. Poverty, hunger and malnutrition are strongly linked to HIV/AIDS. Poverty stricken people suffer most when attached by the disease, as their immune system is more susceptible to infection. HIV develops faster into AIDS in malnourished people than in healthy people. HOPE has therefore involved itself in food distribution to people affected by AIDS as well as assist community based organizations that wish to start food production.