Printer-friendly version
Send to friend
August's featured online dialogue focused on HIV/AIDS Prevention. The New Tactics project decided to keep the momentum going from the International HIV/AIDS Conference held in Mexico City this month, by hosting this important dialogue on HIV/AIDS Prevention tactics. It's not too late to join our dialogue practitioners working in this field and share your experiences, challenges, successes and questions as well as gain ideas and tools to apply to your efforts.
Our featured resoure practitioners include:
- Sarah Kalloch of the Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) (USA)
- Dr. Syed Asif Altaf of the International Transport Workers Federation
- Nathalie Applewhite of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting (Jamaica and Haiti)
- Pablo Frisch of Intercambios Asociación Civil (Argentina)
- Lorraine Teel and others of the Minnesota AIDS Project (USA)
- Lucrecia Jose Wamba of the Southern Africa AIDS Trust (SAT) (Mozambique)
Click here for biographical information on this month's featured resource practitioners.
Please add your comments, experiences, successes, challenges, and questions below under the 7 main themes:
- Introduction: HIV Prevention and Human Rights
- Community capacity-building, outreach, and education
- Raising awareness
- Treatment, care and support
- Social research on HIV/AIDS
- Advocacy
- Measuring Impact
Reaching the community where they are at: HIV testing
It's important to reach at-risk communities where they are at. Our outreach programs are staffed by members of the target population, and our outreach teams often are comprised of volunteers from the target community. A great example of success we've seen in that regard is HIV testing.
For instance, our gay/bisexual outreach program, PrideAlive, sets up testing in LGBT bars -- a traditional gathering place for much of the community. Individuals who might not otherwise access HIV testing can access it through us. There is much to be said for reaching HIV testing clients outside a clinic setting.
Staff from the target population conduct the test process, while volunteers from the target population engage the community and give them the information they need to decide whether or not an HIV test is right for them.
And the advent of rapid testing technologies has made that outreach much more efficient. With older technologies, clients would have to wait at least a week to get test results. Often clients don't return to the same venue and our results rate hovered around 60 percent.
With a 10-minute same-day result, clients know their status right away. It also puts the burden on the test counselor to be able to gauge the client's readiness to receive a potentially life-changing result with 10 minutes contemplation versus a week or more.
Knowledge of status is a major factor in reducing the spread of HIV, and by bringing HIV testing to the community, we eliminate barriers to accessing that knowledge.