The Positive Change: Children, Communities, and Care (PC3) Project is a five-year community based

capacity development program launched in September 2004 to address the needs of Orphans and Other

Vulnerable Children (OVC) through an intensive partnership among international and local NGOs and CBO.

As of June 2007, PC3 was currently supporting 298,979 OVC in partnership with over 500 local community

organizations. PC3 plans to reach a total of 448,979 OVC by the end of FY08 and provide care and

support to additional OVC with COP08 funding to reach the goal of 500,000 OVC receiving support by the

end of the program in September 2009.

The primary target population for this program is OVC ages 0-17 years who are affected or infected by

HIV/AIDS. The PC3 program works with families and communities to provide age-appropriate services in

the following areas: education and life skills, access to healthcare, psychosocial support (PSS), economic

opportunities, protection and legal services, and food/nutrition. Over the life of PC3 project 19,818

volunteers and caregivers in assessing the needs of children and providing them with a comprehensive set

of services. During FY07, 3,112 caregivers and volunteers were trained. PC3 will aim to train an additional

5,000 community members under COP08 support. The PC3 program strengthens the capacity of families,

communities and volunteers to provide care and support for community identified OVC and leverage local

resources to meet those needs. Results to date include increased capacity among caregivers to better

understand both the social and developmental needs of OVC and the affect of trauma on their wellbeing.

COP08 activities under PC3 will include continuing support to the OVC already being served while adding

100,000 newly identified OVC. Save the Children and their partner organizations CARE, Family Health

International, World Vision and World Learning will work with 36 local NGOs and over 500 community

organizations in seven regions including Addis Ababa, Amhara, Oromiya, SNNPRG, Afar, Dire Dawa and

Benishangul Gumuz. PC3 prime partners will continue to train and mentor these local partners to build their

institutional and technical capacity to implement OVC programs.

PC3, other PEPFAR OVC partners, and the GOE contributed to the development of a draft Standards of

Service for Quality OVC Programs in Ethiopia which defines each of the above services/activities and their

desired outcomes. PC3 will rollout the final version of this document to all of its local partners to improve the

communities' understanding of how to provide quality, appropriate support for children in need.

The PC3 program will actively work with parent-teachers associations (PTA) to ensure school enrollment,

retention and good performance of participating OVC. Small grants will be provided to PTAs for IGA

activities to enable them to respond to the needs of OVC in a more sustainable manner. OVC will also

receive educational materials including stationeries, uniforms and textbooks as needed. PC3 partners under

the leadership of WL will continue to advocate for exemption of school related expenses (registration fees,

routine financial contributions) and uniforms for OVC. Through the technical leadership from WL, the PC3

program will also continue providing other services in the area of psychosocial, life skills, health and

nutrition, livelihood and protection needs to OVC within school settings through trained teachers and

volunteers. The PC3 program will also continue its support and expand life skills and community based

early childhood development (ECD) activities. Using HIV-prevention curricula developed by JHU/HCP, PC3

provides individual and peer-group trainings on communication skills, self-awareness, decision-making,

reproductive health issues, and HIV/STI prevention.

The PC3 program works with both private and public health facilities to ensure OVC have access to

preventive, curative and promotive health services. PC3 recently completed a community service mapping

exercise in priority urban areas affected by HIV/AIDS in order to improve referral linkages for child services.

The results of this mapping will be used to inform health facilities and community partners about existing

services. Through such networking and partnership, PC3 can facilitate increased linkages between

community and facility-based activities to improve referrals and access to HIV/AIDS services for OVC and

their families.

The PC3 model uses community core groups in each target ward to identify and coordinate the OVC care

and support activities in collaboration with their respective sub-granting local NGOs. Under COP08, PC3 will

aim to improve the referral systems in their communities in order to take a more family-centered approach

for families directly affected by HIV/AIDS. More focus will be given to providing community-based services

for children affected by and living with HIV and identified at the health center level. To improve targeting and

reach of PEPFAR, in COP08, PC3 will expand coordination with households receiving palliative care so that

OVC in these households receive comprehensive care. Save the Children is a prime partner under the new

MSH Care and Support Contract which will allow the organization more resources to strengthen the referral

networks and linkages to the PC3 services.

The referral networks will also be used to provide community-based targeted food and nutritional support for

needy OVC in COP08. PC3 will strengthen the community-based management of acute severe malnutrition

in partnership with the World Food Programme (WFP), MOH, Clinton Foundation, FANTA, and IntraHealth.

Urban agricultural activities will also be implemented in collaboration with DAI and other partners in selected

program sites in Addis Ababa, Nazareth, Awassa, Bahir Dar and Dire Dawa to ensure continued availability

of nutritious food at OVC HH level in a more sustainable manner. Furthermore, productive safety net

program (PSNP) wraparound intervention will continue until June 2008 in selected World Vision, CARE and

SC/US target areas.

Under COP08, PC3 will apply lessons learned in community mobilization, nutrition and health, livelihood

strengthening and PSS services to improve and expand support to OVC. PC3 successes in improving

social and emotional wellbeing of OVC have been achieved through counseling, play and art therapy, home

visits, school-based interventions, and succession planning to support OVC and their caregivers.

The PC3 program will continue supporting and coaching older OVC and their families to enable them

access to marketable skills training, apprenticeship schemes and other income generating activities. PC3

uses the Community Savings Self-Help Groups (CSSG) model along with Saving and Credit Cooperatives

to mitigate the economic shocks on a household affected by HIV/AIDS. On average, increased household

asset base among participants is ranges from 150 to 2,100 birr per month which is sufficient to cover

various needs from food to basic healthcare for OVC. The PC3 program will continue its partnership with

Coca Cola during COP08 to reach more OVC and their families through this successful livelihood initiative

in Addis Ababa. Similar relationships will be initiated with other private companies to encourage other large

Activity Narrative: businesses to expand their support to OVC through scholarships, internships, and other projects.

Community level awareness creation of OVC rights, networking and partnership with law enforcing

mechanisms will be intensified during COP08 to ensure the rights of OVC and their caregivers. As of June

2007, 1,784 new OVC benefited from legal support. In addition, many PC3 partners conducted workshops,

trainings and sensitization meetings on child rights for Tier III partners, police, attorneys, judges, Ward

committees, child support units, school clubs and other CBO. Following the trainings, PC3 noted a

significant increase in the number of reported cases of sexual and physical abuse to police and Community

Core Groups in the communities. The PC3 program will continue to advocate for the property and legal

rights of OVC, especially young girls who are vulnerable to rape, sexual abuse, assault, exploitation, and

HIV. PC3 will partner with the Male Norms Initiative to provide more resources and tools to communities to

engage men and boys in protecting the orphans in their communities. PC3 will continue supporting and

collaborating with the national and regional level government structures responsible for OVC. PC3 will

maintain support for an individual seconded to the Ministry of Gender and Women's Affairs to ensure

ongoing National OVC Task Force collaboration and advocacy for OVC issues.

In FY07, PC3 produced a new Monitoring and Information System (MIS) to facilitate the rapid collection,

management and reporting of data at the community and partner levels. PC3 updated their M&E systems

and tools to reflect the OGAC OVC Guidance and new indicators. The new reporting formats, training tools

and database will ensure better quality programming, monitoring and reporting in FY08. PC3 will provide

continuous coaching and supportive supervision to partners to improve the quality of care and services to

OVC.