As a consequence of HIV and AIDS, Zimbabwe is facing one of the biggest challenges it has ever had to confront. The lives of millions of children, adolescents and young people have been redefined by HIV and AIDS (UNICEF, 2005). While numerous efforts have been made to implement community-based initiatives, which support orphans and vulnerable children (OVC), the focus has been primarily on providing material and psychosocial support. The approach has neglected to provide valuable life-skills information which orphans and children need in their special circumstances, to make informed, healthy life decisions.
SAfAIDS, in collaboration with the National Association of Non-Governmental Organisations (NANGO), is implementing an information project that complements current government efforts in OVC. The overall goal of the project is to reach at least 25% of OVC in Zimbabwe by December 2009 with comprehensive life saving and life enhancement information and skills that contribute to the development of OVC, break the vicious cycle of vulnerability and HIV transmission and enhance personal survival of OVC. More specifically by 2010 under NAP project for OVC SAfAIDS is:
- Developing and disseminating (print and electronic IEC materials as guided by the needs of the implementing program partners and beneficiaries (OVC).
- Documenting at least 10 (1 per province) best practices from current and emerging OVC programs.
- Facilitating national platforms (4 per year) for sharing of information and dissemination of the best practices to promote cross learning and cross fertilization of ideas among implementing partners, researchers and key stakeholders.
- Producing 2 periodical newsletters (per year) on OVC to facilitate sharing of new information and experiences from the field targeted at 5 000 service providers/CBOs and 50 000 OVCs aged 10-17 yrs in Zimbabwe.
- As guided by the NAP secretariate for OVC, repackaging, translating and disseminating selected key OVC documents into user friendly and accessible packages for OVC, implementing partners and key stakeholders in Zimbabwe.
Guided by SAfAIDS' belief and understanding that information is the power to make a difference in people's lives, the programme uses participatory methods to amplify the voices of orphans and vulnerable children ensure that their voices are heard. SAfAIDS is collaborating with NANGO, whose strength is its network members and its ability to mobilize communities for information dissemination and advocacy activities. By combining their comparative advantages SAfAIDS and NANGO are scaling up the production and dissemination of high quality, relevant and creatively packaged information materials for OVC and key stakeholders in Zimbabwe.