Detailed Mechanism Funding and Narrative

Details for Mechanism ID: 9268
Country/Region: Malawi
Year: 2010
Main Partner: Johns Hopkins University
Main Partner Program: Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Communication Programs
Organizational Type: Implementing Agency
Funding Agency: USAID
Total Funding: $0

Budget Summary PFIP Year 1 Funding - $50,000 PFIP Year 2 Funding - $0

PFIP Year 1 only: Go Girls will receive a total budget of $50,000 in the first year of the partnership framework with which it will implement the following activities:

Summary The PEPFAR Gender Initiative on Girls' Vulnerability to HIV has been developed as part of a set of PEPFAR special gender initiatives. The program aims to prevent HIV infection among 13-19 year old girls by developing innovative program interventions to 1) modify contextual factors associated with increased sexual risk behavior and rates of HIV infection; and 2) assess the feasibility and effectiveness of these interventions and their potential for sustainability, scale-up, and transferability to other settings. Botswana, Malawi and Mozambique are the three countries selected for this Initiative.

Background Many PEPFAR programs reach adolescent girls through broad-reaching AB prevention activities that focus on HIV education in church and school settings. However, these programs often do not reach those at highest risk, who commonly are found outside of these settings. Those at highest risk need to be reached with a package of comprehensive services, including economic strengthening activities, to meet their unique needs. In addition, many OVC programs focus on younger children and overlook the needs of adolescent orphans, even though this latter group represents a significant proportion of all orphans. This Initiative seeks to address these programming gaps by implementing and evaluating promising integrated models to reach highly vulnerable adolescent girls with comprehensive services tailored to their particular needs.

The goal of the Malawi Go Girls! Initiaitve is to prevent HIV infection in the most vulnerable adolescent girls. The objectives are: 1) To identify and expand promising new and existing program approaches for addressing the contextual factors which place some adolescent girls at especially high risk of HIV; and 2) To evaluate the feasibility, sustainability, and effectiveness of these interventions and their potential for adaptation and scale-up to other settings. Initiative activities will be closely linked with other prevention and OVC activities, as well as relevant wrap-around programming. JHU will fund a small sub contract with a local partner to enable the project to expand its depth within the project communities. Areas coverdinthe sub award will include enagaing district, faith and community

leaders in advocay andcollective action to reduce girls' vulnerability to HIV infection; promoting parent- child dialogue and access to youth friendly services, education services, micro credit/IGAs for girls and providing trainings in lifeskills. Interventions will aim at discouraging early marriage for girls and mobilizing comunities to take action to adress vulnerability to HIV infection for young married girls who are within the target group's age arange. Underlying this theme will be interventions and messaging to dealy sexual debut, abstain from sex, promote condom use and promoting a conducive and supportive environment to positively enforce and reward positive behaviour.

Key Issues Identified in Mechanism
Addressing male norms and behaviors
Increasing gender equity in HIV/AIDS activities and services
Increasing women's access to income and productive resources
Increasing women's legal rights and protection