HIV drama club members, 15-year-old Darmi Girole,

Ethiopia

HIV drama club members, 15-year-old Darmi Girole, 17-year-old kabale Kalicha and 15-year-old darmi Huka await to perform their play for local school children in Ethiopia.

Positive Change: Children, Communities, and Care (PC3): Save the Children, in partnership with CARE, Family Health International, World Learning, and World Vision, launched the Positive Change program, designed to reach 500,000 children affected by HIV/AIDS over five years. Positive Change strengthens program interventions focused on improving the lives of orphans and other vulnerable children (OVC) and their households, through psychosocial support, health and nutrition, livelihood, life skills, and educational programming. Through intensive capacity strengthening of local organizations, Save the Children works to increase the availability, quality and consistency of community-based care and services for OVC and HIV/AIDS-affected families.

High Risk Corridor Initiative (HRCI): Initiated as a prevention program to address the high transmission rates of HIV among transport workers and commercial sex workers along Ethiopia’s high risk corridors, the HRCI program has expanded to link prevention efforts with strategies for care and support for persons living with AIDS, and to broaden its prevention program to new target audiences, especially high-risk youth. The HRCI program incorporates an innovative package of prevention and care and support services, including HIV/AIDS information centers, peer education activities, school and community-based prevention outreach for young people, voluntary counseling and testing service strengthening, and community home-based care for persons living with HIV/AIDS.

HIV/AIDS Care and Support Program: As a partner in the recently commenced MSH-led HIV/AIDS Care and Support Program (HCSP), Save the Children is supporting the provision of comprehensive HIV/AIDS services in Ethiopia on the community level. Save the Children works with communities to develop family-centered and community-led multisectoral activities to enable greater access to care, treatment and support at all levels of care, from the home to health facilities and other support services. Over 6,000 Kebele (local neighborhood level) workers will be trained to provide, in liaison with NGOs and community-based organizations, home based care and support for sick children and adults, HIV prevention messages on the household and community level, and treatment adherence support in the home.