Welcome to Education as a Vaccine against AIDS

Learning About Living - Electronic Family Life and HIV/AIDS Education Program
Duration:        November 2007 - Present
Funder:           One World, UK

With a youth population of over 26 million, contributing 62% to the burden of HIV/AIDS in Nigeria and 40% of maternal deaths from unsafe abortions, avenues to ensure access to accurate reproductive health information as a prevention measure for young people becomes imperative. However there has been several challenges faced in the provision of sexual health education to young people due to general misconceptions, cultural and religious sensitivities, gender inequality, a tradition of 'adultism' that suppresses young people and lack of access to accurate information by young people to enable them make informed choices.
The Learning about Living project (LAL) is a new Nigerian initiative that uses Information Communication Technology (ICT) for social learning on sensitive sexuality education issues. The project uses graphics and cartoon animation to bring the Family Life and HIV/AIDS Education curriculum into life, therefore making it fun for the students/learners but also an easy tool for the teachers, who are responsible for classroom delivery.
Based on the significant experience EVA had gathered through the implementation of the reproductive health curriculums in schools, its strong partnership with educational authorities in the FCT and advocacy work on FLHE program, the organization was selected as one of nine partners for the LAL program. EVA is responsible for the coordination of all project activities in the FCT, which is one of the 1st pilot states. This includes making technical input into the development of the LAL computer program, training teachers and learners on the use of LAL program and monitoring of the implementation process. Preliminary activities have commenced and the project is going to be piloted in four junior secondary schools within the FCT reaching over 1000 young people. Beyond project implementation, EVA also serves as a member of the technical steering committee of the project, which is responsible for providing input for the overall management and sustainability of the project in the country. Click here for more information on LAL program.

Out of School Youth AIDS Club Project
Duration:        November 2004 – Present
Funder:          FCT Action Committee on AIDS World Bank Assisted HIV/AIDS Program

Young people, who make up a significant portion of the country’s population, are at the center of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The HIV prevalence rate amongst young people is between the ranges of 4.2% and 9.7% in the north central region, where Abuja is located and it is documented that as of 2002, approximately 4956 young people are living with virus. Therefore to stem the spread of epidemic, interventions must focus on young people.
Governmental and non-governmental organizations have advocated the awareness of HIV/AIDS, but the message is still weak, especially in rural areas. There have been several efforts targeted at young people, especially those in educational institutions, however there are few projects that reached out to youth that are not currently enrolled or ever attended school.
The Out-School AIDS Clubs project integrates peer education strategies with entrepreneurial skills development as a key strategy for reducing youth’s susceptibility to HIV/AIDS. These strategies are intertwined and administered through the formation of out-of school youth AIDS clubs. These clubs stimulate dialogue amongst club members on HIV/AIDS issues and conducts out-reach activities to youths in other neighboring communities. The project is being implemented in six rural communities in three area councils of the FCT. Since the commencement of the project, the trained youth educators have reached over 3000 peers with HIV/AIDS information. Other than the young people, the project also targets community gatekeepers and has increased the knowledge of 135 religious leaders and 168 artisan employers. Working with these gatekeepers, helps the project to create a favorable environment where young people can access and use HIV/AIDS information and thus change unhealthy behaviors.

Strengthening Economic Capacities for Adolescent Orphans
Duration:        March 2007 – Present
Funder:      Chevron (Formerly TEXACO Nigeria LTD)

While this pandemic affects all of Nigeria, young people and children compose a sub-population that is particularly at risk of infection and carries the brunt of the HIV/AIDS epidemic’s burden. Adolescent orphans are faced with additional challenges that are different from the needs of younger OVC. Their needs go beyond housing, food, social support and education.   Adolescent Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) are more likely to engage in unhealthy behaviors such as drug/alcohol abuse, which heightens the probably for engaging in sexual risk behaviors and tend to have limited access to vital HIV/AIDS information and services because of limited access to education. They are also more vulnerable to HIV infection, because they have fewer economic opportunities due to lower educational qualification and thus may be forced into sexual trade for economic support. The economic impacts of the epidemic on households can also increases the chances that many adolescent might drop out of school, especially if they have to assume new responsibilities for supporting their families.
The Strengthening Economic Capacities for Adolescent Orphans project, a scale-up of the successful components of the Vulnerable Youth Project, aims improve the quality of life of adolescent orphans and vulnerable children in Nassarawa state by strengthening their financial capacities and life skills. In the past projects, beneficiaries were provided with equipment or material support for establishing new business or expand on existing ones. Evaluation studies revealed that this approach was not very effective due to the fact that some beneficiaries were not utilizing the materials provided for them. Under this project cycle, the project is working with the adolescent OVC to facilitate the formation of small self-help groups or cooperatives, strengthening the capacities of the groups and their members through trainings and mentoring, creation of a revolving loan fund and establishing linkages with relevant government agencies to enable the group access additional financial services. Two self-help groups, composed of 12 members each, have been created and six members accessed their 1st loans in December 2007. These young orphans are setting up businesses such as the sales of used clothing, hair extensions and musical CDs with as little as N15,000 (equivalent of $120). Within the next three months, an additional six members will qualify for loans to establish their businesses. The group composition continues to grow as new members are joining to access the services. Given the relative success, this strategy has been utilized in supporting the financial capacities of OVC caregivers in the Window of Hope Project and negotiations have commenced with Chevron to expand the coverage of the project.

Dance 4 Life
Duration:        June 2006 – Present
Funder:          Dance4Life International and National Concept Owners

Dance4Life is a growing international movement of, by and with young people. In each country existing organisations with existing educational projects on HIV and AIDS, reproductive health and rights, governments, companies and young people work together within the concept of Dance4Life, to reach out to the ‘silent majority’ in their country. On Saturday 1st of December 2012, World AIDS Day, Dance4Life aims to have at least 1 million young people in 50 cities from the 24 countries dancing simultaneously together for life. The young people will be able to see each other via internet and satellite connections, and will have a strong feeling of unity in their collective rights for health and their collective aspiration to push back HIV and AIDS. Despite the physical distance and cultural differences the young people dance together, all dressed in white, supporting the urgent need for change. With this powerful 'statement of hope' the youth is making it clear to the media and to governments that this is their greatest global challenge yet; fighting back HIV and AIDS. The silence, taboos and the lethargy can be broken.
The Dance4Life concept, consists of two dimensions, is applied in all participating countries. On one hand is the thematic dance event, every two years on the Saturday before World AIDS Day. This event is the apotheosis of an interactive, edutainment and life skills oriented Dance4Life Schools Project. And it’s a reward for all the young participants in the Dance4Life Schools Project. On the other hand, there is the fundraising TV-program, which is the apotheosis of a multi-media communications campaign, and which is aired simultaneously with the dance event. Both dimensions enhance and strengthen each other, offering a modern handle for the youth with which to make their involvement with the theme concrete.
The organization is one of the four lead implementing organizations on this project and coordinates activities within the FCT. The project is being implemented in five rural communities in the FCT with out-of-school youth. In December 2006, 25 young people from the FCT joined their Lagos, Calabar and Kano counterparts to participate in the global dance event.   In December 2007, each of these five communities were provided with small grants to enable them implement World AIDS Day commemoration activities in their communities. The activities, which included dramas and rallies, successfully reached over 1300 young people and adults on HIV/AIDS issues on the 1st of December.

Window of Hope
Duration:        May 2005-Present
Funder:           Global Fund for Children

A critical component of a comprehensive response to the HIV/AIDS component is the areas of care and support for those infected and affected by the epidemic. Several reports have shown that there have been some efforts in the areas of care and support for persons living with HIV/AIDS, however limited efforts have been made in supporting those affected by the epidemic. Many of the OVC programs focus on meeting only the basic material needs of these children. It is important for program to pay attention to their equally important educational, psychological and emotional needs, and to protecting children from stigma and discrimination, abuse and exploitation.   According to the 2003 sentinel survey, it is estimated that Benue state has over 250,000 orphans and although this figure is just an estimates, it illustrates the need to intensify actions targeted at mitigating the impact of the epidemic especially on children.
The Window of Hope project is an OVC psychosocial support project implemented in four communities in Benue State. The project works with children (orphans and street children) between the ages of 8-13 by providing them with weekly life skills education sessions conducted by community youth volunteers (child facilitator). The life skill session are documented in the Window of Hope manual and features key topics such as self-esteem, HIV prevention, gender roles, communication, sexual abuse and exploitation. The weekly education sessions also present a great opportunity to develop basic numeracy and literacy skills of the children, all of which have never enrolled in school or have drop out due to several factors. The project trained 75 community youth volunteers, who have reached a total of 1030 children in the last project cycle. The project commenced in May 2005 reaching 513 children and based on its success was scale-up to two additional communities in two local governments in Benue state. Other than the weekly life skills session the children are engaged in other outreach activities, planned and executed by their child facilitator to further enhance their learning and skills. As an outcome of this project, EVA has established an educational fund (Dooshima Education Fund) to provide the 40 most-needy children with education scholarship to attend public primary schools.
The community driven approach to the project helps to ensure that most of the project activities are sustained at the end of the project funding cycle. EVA is working with the community volunteers to formalize their structure by providing financial and technical support to facilitate the formation of a community based organization aimed at support OVC in their various communities. This intervention has been tagged as a best practice by the Benue State Ministry of Education.

Women Initiative for Sexuality Education and Economic Empowerment
Duration:        July 2006 – July 2007
Funder:           Africare International, Nigeria

Women, especially young people are vulnerable to HIV/AIDS and other reproductive health issues. The vulnerability of women can be viewed from three angles, first the biology makeup of the female allows free entrance of infections through the reproductive tract, and women are often sexually exploited by males for one reason or another ranging from, economic factor to sexual abuse. In addition, women’s reproductive health rights are often denied as most often they need the consent of their husbands or partners to access reproductive health services. Social practices that allows one male to have multiple wives and concubines is another factor that increases the vulnerability of women, thus women involved in such situations are not disposed to protect their reproductive health rights. This leaves women very dependent on their male counterparts and lead to vices such as exchange of sex for gifts and monetary favors. This can adversely affect the health and development of females which consequently have severe social and economic impact on the country. Empowering women with knowledge on HIV/AIDS and reproductive health as well as skills on income generating activities would contribute significantly to the reduction of HIV/AIDS in the country.
Women Initiative for Sexuality Education and Economic Empowerment (WISE) is an intervention aimed at reducing women’s vulnerability to the AIDS epidemic and other reproductive diseases. The project provides young commercial sex workers and female street children with viable alternatives to protect their health and development. By providing two weeks trainings on reproductive health and business management, referrals for testing and treatment of STIs, vocational training programs and equipment/materials grants to establish small-scale businesses, 450 girls living in FCT and Nassarawa states were supported to change their life style.

Vulnerable Youth Project
Duration:        December 2005 – March 2007
Funder:           Nassarawa State Action Committee on AIDS, World Bank Assisted HIV/AIDS Program

The Vulnerable Youth Project is a special intervention designed to address the factors that is fueling the growth of the epidemic amongst young people. Working in collaboration with the Center for Research and Documentation, College of Education, Akwanga, the project targets young people in tertiary institutions, young married girls, adolescent orphans and young people living with HIV/AIDS.
The project applied a two-pronged approach to achieving its goal and objective. The first approach was to strengthen the capacity of the Center for Research and Documentation to develop and implement HIV/AIDS interventions for its school community. The project team provided three capacity building trainings on HIV/AIDS basic facts, project management, HIV counseling for 20 representatives of the center and key personnel from the school. A one-year mentoring program was also conducted for four center staff to develop their capacities in proposal development, program design and management as well as monitoring and evaluation. Theses trained staff and the EVA project team worked closely in training 30 youth peer educators within the school and supporting these peer educators to implement five edutainment activities to raise their peer knowledge on HIV/AIDS issues. These activities successfully reached over 3000 students and staff within the college of education. The project also conducted two mobile HIV counseling and testing outreaches, where over 400 students accessed the services.
The second approach was to strengthen the financial capacities and change HIV/AIDS related risk behaviors of vulnerable out-of-school youth living in Akwanga and Wamba local government areas of Nassarawa state. The project targeted young married girls and adolescent orphans by providing them with economic empowerment programs aimed at supporting them to initiate and sustain a micro-business. This strategy was being used to reduce their poverty related vulnerability to HIV/AIDS and contribute to the overall improvement of their quality of life. The project successfully worked with 60 orphans, 40 young married girls and two young people living with HIV/AIDS, who received HIV/AIDS and life skills trainings, business management trainings, equipment support and one-on-one mentoring.

Promoting Sexual and Reproductive Health and HIV/AIDS Reduction Project (PSRHH)
Duration:        November 2004 – March 2007
Funder:           Action AID International, Nigeria

The Promoting Sexual and Reproductive Health and HIV/AIDS Reduction programme was a seven-year intervention, co-funded by the Department for International Development of the British Government (DFID) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The project is managed by Population Services International (PSI) in partnership with the Society for Family Health, ActionAid International Nigeria (AAIN) and Crown Agents. The goal of the PSRHH programme is to improve sexual and reproductive health among poor and vulnerable populations in Nigeria by contributing to the national response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic and reproductive health problems. Action AID International, Nigeria partnered with EVA to deliver on the project goal by targeting out-of-school youth and their gatekeepers in the Abuja region.
The project was implemented in six communities, Mabuchi, Gwagwalda, Mogadishu barracks, Mabilla barracks, Durumi, Garki village targeting young people who have never attended school or recent school drop out. Using peer education strategies and edutainment activities the projected provided reproductive health and HIV/AIDS information to 2500 young people. The project also targeted gatekeepers, especially artisan employees using interpersonal communication strategies to improve their knowledge and understanding of HIV/AIDS and reproductive health issues. A key success of the project in the 2nd phase was an increase in the number of young girls participating in the project (Click here to read more on this). At the end of the project, the young people formed community based organizations to continue implementing HIV/AIDS interventions in their communities. EVA provides technical assistance by facilitating the legal registration of the CBO with government agencies, implementing trainings/capacity building for the CBO officials, creating linkages with other development agencies and supporting the CBO fundraising efforts to ensure availability of financial resources for their community based efforts. Although the project was completed in 2007, EVA continues to mentor these organizations to sustain HIV/AIDS efforts in the various communities.

Young Men as Partner’s Program
Duration:        September 2002– August 2003
Funder:          Samuel Huntington Foundation, Wesleyan University Brodigan Fund

Young men may be a particularly important audience for "men and reproductive health" programs because they often lack access to health information and services and may be more open to considering new ideas than their older counterparts. Recognizing this fact, the organization developed a special reproductive health initiative targeting young men. The project goal was to increase knowledge about HIV/AIDS and reproductive health issues and decrease the occurrence of gender based violence. The project was implemented in three all male secondary school in Abuja using the Center for Development and Population Activities (CEDPA), “Choose a Future! Issues and Options for Adolescent Boys” curriculum. The young men were taken through series of participatory learning activities as an after school program. A key strategy to the project was the implementation of the curriculum sessions by young men, who were recent high school graduates from neighboring schools within the FCT. The project successfully reached 900 young boys with viable life skills including self-esteem development, decision making and social assertiveness.

Youth Health and AIDS Curriculum
Duration:        November 2000 – August 2003
Funder:           Echoing Green Foundation, National Agency for Control of AIDS (World Bank Assisted Program) and Global Fund for Children

In Nigeria which has an overall HIV infection rate of 4.4%, youth account for over sixty percent (60%) of all new cases of HIV/AIDS. Unfortunately, Nigerian adolescents are faced with an almost complete lack of sexual health education and services, but are engaging in behavior which places them in one of the highest risk categories in the nation for HIV infection. Seventy percent (70%) of males and fifty percent (50%) of females attending secondary schools in Nigeria are sexually active or have had sexual intercourse at least once. Young people lack the critical information and life skills necessary to prevent HIV infection. These in-school youths indulge in high-risk behaviors and are at great risk of contacting HIV. Because in-school youth lack access to accurate information they are ill informed about sexuality issues, which increases their vulnerability.
The Youth Health and AIDS Curriculum was developed to fill the gap by proving young people with accurate information about their sexual health and develop critical life skills need for them to develop into healthy and productive adults. The content was developed using the “Guidelines for Comprehensive Sexuality Education” in Nigeria and the Namibian “Focus on Kids” curriculum due to its positive results in reducing HIV related risk behaviors amongst Namibian youth. The curriculum featured creative modes of learning such as student lead lectures, discussions, role-playing, films and other multi-media presentations, and games. The one-month long curriculum was implemented in 29 secondary schools over a period of four years reaching over 9000 young people in Nassarawa state and FCT.
This project was initially funded by Echoing Green Foundation and based on the success of the project; it’s scale-up was supported by NACA/World Bank Assisted Program. EVA was selected as one of the first, thirteen grantees and the only youth-led organization to benefit from the World Bank Assisted HIV/AIDS Development Program
The YAC also provided activities that targeted parents of student participants. Based on research studies, it has been documented that when young people feel unconnected to home, family, and school, they may become involved in activities that put their health at risk. However, when parents are actively involved and communicate effectively with their children, young people more often develop positive, healthy attitudes about themselves. In addition, most adults want youth to know about how to prevent HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Parents however often have difficulty communicating about sex. Due to the above reasons, parent activities were incorporated into YAC activities. This component focused on providing HIV/AIDS information and communication skills to parents and included parent/student home-work assignments, and interactive parent workshops. This component was supported by Global Fund for Children.

The experience gathered from the four years of implementing this project, set the stage for EVA’s ability to provide the educational authorities in FCT, Benue and Nassarawa states with technical support for the implementation of the Family Life and HIV/AIDS Education program.

Youth AIDS Service
Duration:        February 2001 – April 2003
Funder:           Echoing Green Foundation and NACA

In order for sexuality education to be maximally effective, it must include youth development and service learning approaches that motivate young people to think of their future and improve their sense of self worth. EVA accomplished this, through the use of EVA AIDS Clubs in the sixteen participating secondary schools in the FCT. The program focused on reinforcing the messaged delivered during the Youth Health/AIDS Curriculum sessions with a special emphasis on promoting positive HIV related attitudes and improving sexual decision-making, communication, and social assertiveness skills. The ultimate purpose of EVA AIDS Clubs was to produce peer health educators (PHEs) within the secondary school system that will be able to advocate for HIV prevention in their respective schools and communities.
AIDS club activities began with a peer health education (PHE) training workshop to provide members with the basic knowledge and skills needed to become educators.   Subsequent weekly meetings strengthened PHE skills and knowledge. During the weekly meetings, AIDS club members will complete interactive assignments outlined in an AIDS club manual. In order to develop youth leadership and career skills, build self-esteem and promote service learning (integral components of successful HIV/AIDS prevention and sexual health programs), student members of the EVA AIDS clubs also completed two community service projects during each scholastic year. These projects, funded by a small grant from EVA, were designed, implemented, and evaluated by AIDS club members. In addition, students also participated in special programs that re-enforced HIV/AIDS related messages such as World AIDS Day activities, leadership conferences, workshops, and competitions focused on AIDS prevention.
Upon graduation from secondary school, EVA recruited six young people to work with the organization as staff, who mentored their school EVA AIDS clubs and facilitated the formation of new clubs in seven additional schools. The lessons learnt the small-grant component of the project has been scale-up for use in other interventions like the Out-Of-School Youth AIDS Club.