Teaching Links with Zambia

posted: 22/12/2010

George House Trust is proud to welcome and host Remmy Mukonka, the Executive Director of the Zambian teachers HIV organisation, AATAZ. Remmy is learning through working at George House Trust, as part of the Commonwealth Exchange Programme. It's two way - he's also helping us with his insights and advice.

Here we tell you about this exciting project, the Anti-AIDS Teachers Association of Zambia, and about how you may help.

More about AATAZ You can find out much more about AATAZ on our other pages here.

HIV and Teachers in Zambia
The Zambian HIV organisation of teachers, AATAZ, was founded in 2001 because healthy teachers are key to a healthy community. AATAZ works to raise HIV and AIDS awareness and promotes positive behaviour change among teachers, young people and the local community. In Zambia 15.2% of the population has HIV: 1,100,000 people. In NW England under 1% of the population has HIV.

AATAZ believe education is a powerful social vaccine against the spread of HIV.

The organisation started because of the high rates of HIV infection and death among Zambian teachers, which has a devastating impact not only on teachers, but on the whole school system.

AATAZ has developed holistic approachs to supporting teachers and working with the education system, to combat HIV and make a better future for Zambia’s children.

AATAZ at work
At their centre in Lusaka, AATAZ offers local orphans and vulnerable children IT skills training, dance, theatre, music and sport.

These help improve communication, negotiation and team skills. The schooling provides solidarity and respect, and increases self-confidence and protection from exploitation and harm.

AATAZ sends and supports 30 orphans to attend school.

The core of the AATAZ mission, is caring for teachers living with HIV and AIDS and preventing new infections among teachers.

To do this they set up teacher support groups in all nine Zambian provinces. This means teachers can quickly get the local care and support they need to live well, and the support strengthens their families’ ability to cope with the effects of HIV.

Zambian Community Outreach
The Anti-AIDS Teachers’ Association of Zambia reaches thousands of vulnerable and disadvantaged families each year, with HIV information, prevention strategies, nutrition advice, care and support, and free HIV-testing and counselling.

Yet AATAZ faces a severe lack of resources that limits what they can do and the help they can provide. AATAZ are, for example, seeking new or second hand computers, to help them make a bigger improvement in the quality of life of the children they help.

AATAZ has the track record, expertise, people, passion, skills, networks, experience, integrity and reputation, to deliver impactful, tangible and sustainable results. What they lack is basic resources.
 

The AATAZ team have delivered extraordinary results with remarkably few resources.

With a few more resources, they could make a major impact on even more people’s lives, in a country where HIV has already reduced Zambians’ average life expectancy to 42 years.

Computers are one of the most powerful ways to boost their ability to make an impact in the fight against HIV, and to brighten the future for the children.
 

With internet access computers are the most effective and affordable gateway to new resources, information and networks, and one of the most powerful tools for helping AATAZ raise funds and communicate.

AATAZ know computers are the key to sustainability and will help it become less dependent on goodwill.

What would help?
AATAZ are urgently looking for both desktop and laptop computers. Desktops are best for teaching the children, while the laptops are the most cost effective and portable way for staff to have the most impact.

Investing in technology and infrastructure is one of the most powerful ways to increase AATAZ's capacity. This is particularly true of charities in resource-poor settings, where basic technology can transform an organisation.

Make a big difference
If you are able to support a charity this year, then this is one where you can make a big difference. Small investments in computers will have a big impact. The results are big in scale, the need is urgent, and the results will be seen quickly. That’s the very real difference your support would make, it would mean the highest possible impact for every pound you are able to offer.

Keen to help?
We will provide a way for people to make donations to AATAZ very early in the new year, 2011.

Computers4Africa

Acorns into Oaks - donations making a big difference

Even small donations support the work of AATAZ in big ways
 

What difference would you like to make?

• £2 buys a basic school stationery kit for one child (2 pencils, 2 biros, sharpener, eraser, ruler)
• £5 buys one pair of childrens shoes for school
• £10 buys seedlings for one person to start a basic vegetable and herb garden
• £12 buys a school uniform for one child
• £22 buys two African drums for the dance and music group
• £30 pays for a garden spade and a hoe for a herb and vegetable garden
• £50 pays for the football team refreshments and first aid kits for two months
• £70 pays one month’s salary of a peer educator in their Recreation Centre 
• £85 pays for a year of high school fees for one child
• £100 pays one month's salary of the psychosocial children's counsellor 
• £200 would help install safe and hygenic children's toilets at the centre.

New role for African volunteers at George House Trust

posted: 16/12/2010

George House Trust is launching an exciting new peer support service for people living with HIV from African communities. The project is funded by the Volunteering Fund and aims to reduce the stigma and isolation that many people living with HIV from African communities experience. Trained volunteers will offer peer support in a range of settings through sharing their own experiences of living with HIV, providing basic information about HIV and offering emotional support.

We are currently recruiting volunteers for the project and would like to encourage HIV positive people from African communities to apply.

The deadline for applications is Friday 14th January 2011 and we will be delivering our first Peer Support Volunteer Training Course  on the 21st, 24th and 26th January 2011.

If you would like to talk about getting involved as a volunteer, please speak to Laura on 0161 274 5653 or email: volunteering@ght.org.uk

Click here to read the volunteer role description.

Click here to apply to be a volunteer with this project.

You can also download the application form here.

Halving Undiagnosed HIV

posted: 09/12/2010

The Department of Health has welcomed a community-led policy for HIV testing called Halve It. The Halve It campaign aims to cut the number of people who have HIV but don’t know it, in half, and by 2015.

The Department of Health said: “We really welcome the Halve It campaign. Encouraging HIV testing is everyone’s business – the NHS, charities and groups, individuals, the media and industry.”

Best test early

If diagnosed early, HIV can be successfully treated and people with HIV live to near-normal life expectancies. Late diagnosis, by contrast, is associated with a greater risk of hospitalisation and AIDS-related illness, reduced life expectancy and increased cost to the NHS. It is also associated with increased onwards transmission, and continued sexual risk taking while people are unaware of their HIV-positive status.

Halve It is a new coalition of national experts determined to tackle the continued public health challenges posed by HIV. This campaign is being supported by BHIVA (British HIV Association).

They have produced a position paper Early Testing Saves Lives

Simon Kirby, the Conservative MP in Brighton Kemptown, is the vice-chair of the All-Parliamentary Group for HIV/AIDS. He said he was “delighted” that the government supports the campaign. Calling the target “ambitious and admirable”, he said: “I am delighted that the government will support the coalition of experts involved in the Halve It Campaign in achieving their goal.”

Caroline Lucas, the Green MP for Brighton Pavilion, added: “What we really need is a much stronger commitment from the government to properly address the issue – and, importantly, some assurances that greater resources will be made available for those working in HIV detection”.

Action not words
The chief executive of the National AIDS Trust, Deborah Jack, said the government needed to do more action than simply making welcoming noises. “The Halve It campaign requires leadership and support from the top – and it would be good to know what plans the government has to reduce significantly the rates of late HIV diagnosis in the UK,” she said.

NW England has the worst rate of late diagnosis in England.

Call for national screening
The Halve It campaign calls on the government to set up a national screening programme, and to make HIV testing more accessible.

Baroness Gould talked about this at the autumn party conferences. She pointed out this was the first time that there had been a really active campaign around undiagnosed HIV and highlighted the case for including sexual health and HIV in the upcoming new Public Health White Paper. "We need to analyse why people don't get tested", she said.

Dr. Ed Wilkins (consultant at the regional specialist HIV centre, North Manchester General Hospital) said the problem was that too many patients appear with symptoms of long HIV infection, with serious complications brought about by a damaged immune system. Early testing for HIV has to be a public health priority.

Doctors miss chances
"75% of people who have been diagnosed late, originally visited a GP with ill health and the virus wasn't picked up so there is clearly a need to educate health professionals about early diagnosis too." said Dr. Wilkins.

Men with the wrong ideas
Sir Nick Partridge (Terrence Higgins Trust chief executive) highlighted that HIV testing is quick, easy and it can save lives and far too many people do not realise this. Sir Nick drew attention to the fact that men, whether they are gay or heterosexual and whatever their ethnicity including African, still have out of date ideas about HIV and what treatment and testing is like.

He pointed out that 1 in 7 gay men on the gay scene in London are HIV positive (it is around 1 in 10 in Manchester and Blackpool) and that 1 in 5 gay men with HIV do not know this. Many men have never taken a HIV test.

We need more community based, easily accessible rapid testing clinics to target high risk groups of undiagnosed people, such as African men and men who have sex with men.
David Cairns Labour MP for Inver Clyde said that "MP's on the all party Parliamentary Group on HIV are 100% behind the new 'Halve It' campaign. Stigma is still an enormous challenge to overcome."

Get Tested
The Lesbian & Gay Foundation's Rapid HIV Testing clinic for gay and bi men runs every Thursday at LGF, 5 Richmond Street, Manchester, M1 3HF.
The clinic takes place every Thursday at The LGF from 4-6pm and you can just drop-in, as no appointment is necessary.
 

You can find details of the nearest HIV test centres in NW England here

Early Testing Saves Lives - the Halve It  campiagn position paper

Calling African Men

posted: 03/12/2010

Please join us at the African Men's Group on Tuesday 14 December from 1.00 - 2.30pm.

Boost your confidence and feel better about yourself before Christmas and the New Year. Take part in our friendly workshop on self-confidence with Amanda and Jill.

We will meet upstairs at George House Trust on Tuesday 14 December from 1.00 - 2.30pm

We’ll also be announcing our special guest speaker for Men's Role in Society which will be the talking point for our first African Men's Group session for the New Year of 2011, on Tuesday 8 February.

African man and you've never been before?

We'd really welcome you at this group, so please don't be shy and come along.

More information email Jill or ring her on 0161 274 499

Masculinity and HIV in Southern Africa

Here is a South African poster about masculinity and HIV and the words on it are below. You can read blogpages about redefining masculinity for HIV in southern Africa here.

There is a new man in South Africa

• A man who takes responsibility for his actions
• A man who choses a single partner over multiple chances with HIV
• A man whose self-worth is not determined by the number of women he can have
• A man who makes no excuses for unprotected sex, veen after drinking
• A man who supports his partner and protects his children
• A man who rspoects his woman and never lifts a hand to her
• A man who knows that the choices we make today will determine whether we see tomorrow

I am that man and you are my brother

Yenzakahle! Do the right thing

HIV Prevention for Africans in England

posted: 12/10/2010

KWP in Practice is a new website and planning toolkit for meeting the HIV prevention needs of African people in England. The site combines and updates the two key documents, The knowledge, the will and the power, and the African HIV prevention handbook, which were both produced by Sigma Research for the National African HIV Prevention Programme.
 

Whether you fund HIV prevention for African people, or you plan and deliver these, the website's modular, practical, toolkit approach has something to offer.
 

Condom use briefing

The new website has a useful new detailed Briefing on condom use among African people in England.

In the Bass Line survey undertaken with more than 2,000 African people in 2008-09,

• one third (30%) of those who had used condoms said that one had slipped or broken off in the past year.
• More than one third (32%) said they would worry about what others thought of them if they carried condoms.
• One fifth (20%) said they sometimes had problems getting hold of condoms.

Condoms and Africans in England seminars
 

You can also book a place at a seminar about condom use among Africans in England, in either Leeds or London.
 

These full-day seminars are for service providers, clinical staff and commissioners who want to learn and share experiences of meeting the needs of African people regarding to male and female condoms. Sigma staff and local experts will lead a day of practical discussion and debate.

The seminars start at 10:30am and end at 16:30pm.
 

Book the Leeds condom seminar Tuesday 26 October 2010

Book the London condom seminar Wednesday 3 November 2010