discrimination of people living with HIV/AIDS,

A practical example.
The process of planning may seem complicated but in fact we all plan things all the time in our
daily lives- we just don’t write documents about them! Good planning is essential to the
success of your project and is worth every minute of time that you spend on it. Here is an
example of what a students association did to work out their action plan:
Set a clear aim
“We had worked on identifying the priorities in our community and decided that, in order to
combat discrimination of people living with HIV/AIDS, our first step had to be to correct
misunderstandings about how HIV is transmitted and to get across that anyone can get infected.
We felt this was particularly good because it would also help young people to avoid infection
- and may even get us a little help with money from the university ”
Find out what the pre-project situation is, so that you can measure progress later.
“We knew that ‘baseline surveys’ or ‘needs assessment studies’ are used to identify where
things stand at the start of a project. We did not have resources for any formal studies.
Instead, we involved a group of students from different racial and social backgrounds,
both boys and girls, in carrying out a ‘listening survey’ around the university for one
week. They started discussions about HIV transmission wherever they saw a group of
students, and listened carefully to the different opinions. They made brief notes of each
discussion. We all met every evening to share our findings. We were amazed at how much we
learned!”
Be prepared to tackle the obstacles
“Through our student survey we found that, although most people knew that using condoms is
important to avoid infection, they were still confused about how HIV is and is not transmitted,
Key Steps in planning !
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and most were worried about having social contact with people with AIDS.
Many people, particularly women, felt that it was not socially acceptable to
ask questions.”
Identify clearly the activities that will take place, when they will take
place and who will do them.
“We brought together people living with HIV/AIDS and other young people to
discuss this. It was decided that our objectives would be to (a) seek the
co-operation of the college authorities to put up humorous posters that
gently challenged people’s fears and assumptions about sexual health and
(b) involve young people living with HIV/AIDS as peer educators, talking
to small groups of students.”
Decide how you are going to check whether things are going well
“We wanted to monitor our progress, so that we would know if our activities
were having the kind of response we wanted. We decided that, after each
gathering with a peer educator, we would ask participants to give us their
feedback.”
Decide how you will evaluate the project after it ends.
“We decided we would carry out a second survey after the project was
completed, using the same ‘listening’ method as before. But this time we
would start a group conversation about the posters and meetings with peer
educators. We would then get feedback about whether people remembered
seeing the posters, what they had thought of them, and what impact the peer
educator meetings had had on those who had attended or on others who had
heard about them.”
WE HAD A PLAN!!! Then we discussed who would do what when. This was the
hardest part - but, in fact, people were really enthusiastic and there was a
great sense of common purpose.
"Planning and evaluation should be done carefully, since you won’t know where
you are going without planning, and you won’t know where you have been and
where you need to go without evaluation."