Prevention component of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church Development and Interchurch Aid

Commission/IOCC HIV/AIDS Response Mechanism Project

ACTIVITY UNCHANGED FROM FY2008:

The International Orthodox Christian Charities (IOCC) conducts HIV prevention, care and support activities

with the Ethiopian Orthodox Church's Development Inter Church Aid Commission (DICAC).

The Ethiopian Orthodox Church (EOC) has approximately 40 million faithful, over 500,000 clergy and a

network of 40,000 parishes found throughout Ethiopia. DICAC operates in over 200 districts in the country.

The Church publicly declares that it has an obligation to mobilize human and material infrastructure for the

national response to HIV/AIDS and that it should strive to influence positive social change, care for those

affected or living with HIV/AIDS, promote abstinence and faithfulness and reduce stigma and discrimination.

DICAC utilizes peer education and interactive communication to reach hese goals.

This is a continuing activity implemented by the IOCC with DICAC. The comprehensive HIV/AIDS activity

started in FY06 and provides a package of prevention modules to include peer education, public rallies, IEC

materials, media intervention and clergy training, all of which interact to slow the spread of the epidemic.

During the first half of FY07 alone, the partners reached almost 1.2 million clients (54% women) with

abstinence and be faithful (AB) messages and trained 6,700 persons in AB outreach approaches.

During FY08, the activity will operate in 140 districts in 28 dioceses. IOCC anticipates that several districts

will be transitioned to the status of "areas of higher HIV prevalence" using both antenatal care (ANC) and

Ethiopia Demographic and Health Survey (EDHS) data. This will allow communities at risk to be reached

with interactive and interpersonal communications utilizing AB messages. Similar AB approaches utilizing

interpersonal peer education and interactive communication will be conducted through Sunday schools, lay

counselors and 55 public rallies (five by the Patriarch and 50 by the Archbishops).

The communications strategy uses several approaches:

1) Interpersonal Peer Education: During FY05, DICAC implemented a youth prevention program through

the existing Sunday school structure, with 2,000 peer educators reaching 50,000 youth. In FY06 and FY07,

DICAC adapted the Youth Action Toolkit (YAK), produced by Johns Hopkins University Health

Communications Partnership, for the Sunday school setting. In FY06, 80,000 youth were enrolled in YAK

activities at Sunday schools throughout the 100 districts. An additional 2,000 Peer Educators were trained

or retrained.

2) Interactive Communication and Public Rallies: In FY06 and FY07, DICAC supported interactive HIV

prevention and stigma reduction communications (i.e. Archbishop Rallies, Clergy outreach) within AB

prevention activities at the community level. These activities targeted community attitudes and social norms

of the congregation including delay of sexual debut, return to abstinence, mutual fidelity, HIV burden among

young women, empathy for persons living with HIV/AIDS and identifying addressing misconceptions.

Interactive communication and mass rallies held by the Patriarch and his Archbishops played an important

role in catalyzing discussion on HIV/AIDS at the community level. These types of interventions will be

continued in FY08 with strategic emphasis on the vulnerability of young girls and sanctioning male behavior

in relation to multiple sexual partnerships and cross generational sex.

In FY05 IOCC/DICAC trained 100 clergy trainers who in turn trained 40,000 clergy and community

members on key AB issues. During FY06, 8,000 additional clergy and community members were trained,

bringing the total to 48,000 trained clergy in operation. These clergy discuss HIV prevention and stigma with

members of the congregation during community outreach and reach millions of individuals during the course

of one year. Discussions utilize church doctrine and clergy training materials to support improvements in

risk perception and AB approaches to HIV prevention by individuals and households. Trained clergy openly

encourage premarital voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) and support discordant couples and others

seeking advice, by referral to local service providers, on condoms, secondary prevention, care and support

and ART. Lastly, a new module was incorporated into the training manual for clergy on the complementarity

between holy water and ART.

3) Pre-Service HIV/AIDS Curriculum in Theological Colleges: During FY05, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church,

with support from the IOCC, integrated HIV/AIDS modules into the core curriculum of eight clergy training

institutes and three theological colleges. During FY06 and FY07 further supportive supervision was

provided to these training institutes and colleges to ensure that the curriculum is effectively implemented. In

addition, clergy in training will perform an internship that includes community outreach during the summer

months in the regions. A section of that internship drew on lessons from the core curriculum.

Activities in FY08 will include:

1) Supportive supervision of district activities by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church to ensure consistency,

quality assurance and improvements in programmatic performance against management indicators.

2) Continued integration and supervision of HIV/AIDS core curriculum into eighteen clergy training institutes

and three theological colleges. Training through these outlets will reach 2,000 individuals. The maintenance

of training standards will be fostered through the modification of curricula on an as need basis, refresher

courses and regular reporting.

3) Utilization of interpersonal communication through Sunday school and clergy counseling. IOCC

anticipates additional technical assistance from the Johns Hopkins University Health Communications

Partnership to implement the Youth Action Toolkit to support risk reduction, improved knowledge of

HIV/AIDS and adoption of AB practices. Ninety-five thousand youths and young adults will be reached

through Sunday Schools.

Activity Narrative: 4) Interactive communications and mass rallies with the Patriarch and Archbishops to support changes in

social norms and attitudes surrounding HIV/AIDS. The rallies draw on messages that emphasize

empowerment, support and empathy for those living with HIV/AIDS and HIV prevention through AB.

5) In-service training of 10,000 clergy with follow-up from district branch coordinators.

6) Capacity building and exit strategy/planning of IOCC with the Ethiopian Orthodox Church/DICAC to

support a multi-year transition of activities from IOCC to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, thus assuring

sustainability of the program.

7) Information, education and communications (IEC) materials on HIV prevention, care and misconceptions

regarding the Ethiopian Orthodox Church's stance on the complementarities of holy water and ART will be

distributed. These IEC messages and materials will be reinforced by development and dissemination of new

audio visual presentations.

8) Utilization of community members and PLWH trained as lay counselors to support community outreach to

the general population. These persons will function as messengers of hope to give public testimony about

their experiences with the program.

DICAC has supported the development of local community networks linking community organizations

offering HIV prevention, care and treatment services. Efforts during FY05 allowed important partnerships to

be formed with local government, the Ethiopian Red Cross, PLWH associations and the Organization for

Social Services for AIDS. In FY08, the program will continue to support these networks with technical

assistance from DICAC staff in the regions. DICAC will cultivate additional partnerships with other

organizations active in interpersonal communications, including Population Service International, Population

Council, Family Guidance Association, World Food Program, Action Aid, and Mums for Mums.

Gender remains an underlying principle to DICAC and is given attention as a cross-cutting theme. Efforts to

increase participation of women in youth clubs, community-based discussion groups, income generating

activities and counseling and training activities will continue. By the same token, steps will be taken to

increase male participation in the program at all levels in collaboration with Engender Health (12235). In

FY06, explicit female participation targets were raised to 50% for lay counselor and peer educator staffing,

with satisfactory results. IOCC will maintain these targets will be maintained in FY08.

In addition to the explicit multi-year planned transfer of responsibility from IOCC to the Ethiopian Orthodox

Church/DICAC, IOCC and DICAC will collaborate with the National Partnership Forum and the Inter Faith

Forum for Development and Dialogue and Action both to assure sustainability of this program as well as to

reinforce Ethiopia's faith-based organization response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Sub partners:

Development and Inter-Church Aid Commission

Ethiopian Orthodox Church

This is a continuing Track-1 ABY activity.

Y-CHOICES is an AB activity focused on HIV-prevention. The program is designed to reach in-school and

out-of-school children and youth in urban and semi-urban areas. The program is being implemented in

partnership with 25 local nongovernmental organizations (NGO) across nine regions and two city

administrations.

Specific objectives of the program include: 1) promote healthy sexual behaviors that will lead to decreased

risky sexual activities among youth, families, and communities through the provision of skills-based

knowledge and building capacities of youth; 2) scale up and expand community-focused programs for

behavior change education targeting youth to bring about healthy sexual behaviors and reduce harmful

sexual practices; and 3) improve and strengthen the environment for family discourse on social issues

critical to healthy behavior change and to the reduction of harmful sexual practices by youth and their

communities.

In FY05 and FY06, Pact and its implementing partners reached 1,766,469 secondary school and 720,771

primary school students, 860,089 out-of-school and 386,065 adults. FY07 supplemental funds enabled Pact

to provide 126 primary schools Sports for Life training and small grants to undertake abstinence and life

skills development activities. Community conversation training was provided to out-of-school clubs and

traditional community based organizations as an effort to improve child-parent interaction and quality of the

ongoing Y-CHOICES activities. Gender is a crosscutting theme and is incorporated into all training and

outreach activities. The Y-CHOICES program anticipates 40% female participation.

In FY 08, Pact will expand partnerships to reach old and new school partners, out-of-school youth clubs and

local faith-based associations. The project will support training of trainers in Sports for Life approaches for

100 school children and NGO representatives; and in Community Conversation approaches for 50 NGO

representatives. The project will provide small grants to 25 local NGOs to implement activities in schools

and communities and will provide small grants to 126 schools to strengthen club activities and organize

health clubs in elementary schools.

In order to meet the Y-CHOICES program objectives, various strategies will be employed at different levels.

Pact will strengthen the capacity of its partner local NGO through technical training to enable them to

successfully manage and implement ABY programs. The partners will in turn train AB program facilitators

(peer educators and mentors) in secondary and primary schools, out-of-school youth clubs and traditional

community based organizations. The trained facilitators will also organize and undertake diverse behavior

change focused community out reach programs , including peer learning, mass education, drama, question

Activity Narrative: and answer contests, adult-child dialogue, community conversation and mini-media broadcast through AB

messages targeted at grassroot-level outlets.

Expected short-term results include strengthened local NGO's capacity to implement effective ABY

programs; increased school and out-of-school clubs and traditional community based organizations

initiatives to combat HIV spread; improved knowledge and skills to transmit HIV/AIDS-related messages to

target groups, and improved life skills and child-parent communication resulting in informed choices and

behavior change contributing to a measurable decrease in HIV infection.

This activity is linked with the MET, Healthy-CHOICES as well as other ABY programs. Its implementation is

coordinated with community-based organizations and government structures in operational areas.

The Y-CHOICES program primarily targets in-school and out-of- school youth and children within the 10-24

age bracket. The program fosters youth-adult partnership in HIV prevention reaching adults/parents who are

members of traditional community based organizations. The participation of adults and parents will address

the prevalent weak child-parent communication practice on sexuality issues. The youth-parent partnership

is expected to promote open communication about HIV/AIDS and sexuality issues at family level and result

in a more supportive family environment.

The emphasis areas of this program are addressing male norms and behavior and increasing gender equity

in HIV/AIDS programs. Through involving parents and adults in the activity the program will strengthen

community and communication between youth and adults. The program actively engages women in

participating in the facilitators program. Those engaged in the program will receive training on behavior

change that will directly affect male norms and female involvement.

New/Continuing Activity: Continuing Activity

Continuing Activity: 16557

Continued Associated Activity Information

Activity Activity ID USG Agency Prime Partner Mechanism Mechanism ID Mechanism Planned Funds

System ID System ID

16557 5597.08 U.S. Agency for Pact, Inc. 7466 610.08 Track 1 $2,670,364

International

Development

8095 5597.07 U.S. Agency for Pact, Inc. 4701 610.07 Track 1 $1,208,396

International

Development

5597 5597.06 U.S. Agency for Pact, Inc. 3763 610.06 T1 $414,751

International

Development

Emphasis Areas

Gender

* Addressing male norms and behaviors

* Increasing gender equity in HIV/AIDS programs

Human Capacity Development

Public Health Evaluation

Food and Nutrition: Policy, Tools, and Service Delivery

Food and Nutrition: Commodities

Economic Strengthening

Education

Water

Table 3.3.02: