HIV and AIDS awareness within Building Livelihoods

Key Issues 

An estimated 22.5 million people were living with HIV and AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa at the end of 2009, with almost 3 million of those in Kenya and Uganda.

Within those countries, AIDS is becoming a greater threat in rural areas than in cities. This is because in rural communities information and health services are less readily available. Rural people are therefore less likely to know how to protect themselves from the disease and, if they fall ill, are less able to get care. With more than 70% of Africa's poor people living in rural areas this is a serious problem.

What we do

In Uganda we are integrating HIV and AIDS education into the rural income projects. In order to do this we have selected local peer educators from among Village Savings and Loans Associations. These peer educators are individuals who have been given training on HIV and AIDS issues. Having received the training the educators are able to pass on the information which they have learned to fellow group members who, in turn, can then educate their families and communities.

This peer training is taking place in both the Kumi and Masindi regions of Uganda. So far, 48 Village Savings and Loans peer educators have been trained with 12 in Kumi District and 36 in Masindi.