INTEGRATED ACTIVITY FLAG:

This activity also relates to The Ambassador's HIV and AIDS Small Grants Program activities in OVC (#3118).

SUMMARY:

The Ambassador's HIV and AIDS Small Grants Program in South Africa will use PEPFAR funds to continue to support South Africa's most promising small community organizations making significant contributions to the fight against HIV and AIDS. Major emphasis areas are commodity procurement and human resources. The activities target PLHIV and their families and caregivers, community volunteers, CBOs and FBOs.

BACKGROUND:

The Ambassador's HIV and AIDS Small Grants Program in South Africa (Small Grants) has had two tremendously successful years. Out of over 550 applications, the South Africa Mission has entered into agreement with 126 small community-based organizations (FY 2005 & FY 2006) in the areas of prevention, hospice care, home-based care, treatment support and care for orphans and vulnerable children. Funded projects are located in nine provinces, primarily in rural areas. The average funding amount is under $10,000. All programs supported with Small Grants funds provide service delivery that directly impacts communities and people affected by HIV and AIDS. The Mission has established guidelines and review procedures to ensure that strong applications are considered for funding through a fair, transparent process. Criteria for selection include: improvement of basic conditions at the community level; benefit a substantial number of people in the community; be within the means of the local community to operate and maintain; and quick implementation of grant within one-year agreement period. All grants must conform to the PEPFAR Small Grants Guidelines. Projects are supervised through each Consulate by State Department small grants coordinators. Based on experience in FY 2005 and FY 2006, the USG PEPFAR Task Force anticipates the strongest applications for FY 2007 will be in the areas of (1) care, particularly hospice and community-based care, and (2) orphans and vulnerable children.

ACTIVITIES AND EXPECTED RESULTS:

The next round of applications and approvals for Small Grants has begun (with anticipated FY 2007 funding). Given two successful years of the program, FY 2007 funded organizations are expected to HIV-infected individuals and their families with clinical and physical care, psychological care, spiritual care and social care as well as elements of the preventive care package for adults and children. Anticipated activities include the provision or referral for psychosocial support and household support including assistance with house cleaning, cooking, feeding and changing of linens. Some Small Grants grantees will be involved in pain and symptom recognition and referrals to health care facilities as necessary. Referral for counseling and testing, treatment and ARV services will also be part of the care package. For organizations working in home-based care, the use of preventive measures such as the use of gloves, will also emphasized. Grantees will message and mobilize for cotrimoxazole prophylaxis, screening for TB, and referral for appropriate opportunistic infection management. Grantees will make and effort to ensure equitable access to care services for both males and females and advocate for increased participation by men in service delivery.

These activities support the South Africa Mission's Five-Year Strategy by providing support to and building capacity in small local organizations working at the community level. These activities also contribute to the PEPFAR goals of providing care and support to 10 million HIV-affected individuals.

INTEGRATED ACTIVITY FLAG: In addition to these OVC activities, Small Grants Program activities are implemented in the Basic Health Care and Support program area (#3117).

SUMMARY: The Ambassador's HIV/AIDS Small Grants Program will use FY 2007 PEPFAR funds to continue to support South Africa's most promising small community organizations making significant contributions to the fight against HIV/AIDS. Major emphasis areas for this activity are training and local organization capacity development. The target population for these activities are OVC, HIV infected infants and children, their families and caregivers, community volunteers, community-based organizations (CBOs), faith-based organizations (FBOs) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

BACKGROUND: The Ambassador's HIV/AIDS Small Grants Program in South Africa has been implemented for the past two years. Out of over 550 applications, that USG PEPFAR Task Force has entered into agreement with 126 small community-based organizations (FY 2005 and FY 2006) in the areas of prevention, hospice care, home-based care, treatment support and care for orphans and vulnerable children. PEPFAR funded projects are located in all nine provinces of South Africa, primarily in rural disadvantaged areas. The average funding amount is under $10,000. All programs supported with PEPFAR Small Grants funding provide services that directly impacts communities and people affected by HIV and AIDS. The South Africa USG PEPFAR Task Force has established guidelines and review procedures to ensure that strong applications are considered for funding through a fair and transparent process. All grants must conform to the PEPFAR Small Grants Guidelines. The Small Grant Projects are supervised through each U.S. Embassy Consulate by the State Department small grants coordinators. Based on experience in FY 2005 and FY 2006, the South Africa USG PEPFAR Task Force anticipates that in FY 2007 funding will be allocated in the areas of care, particularly hospice and community-based care and orphans and vulnerable children (OVC).

ACTIVITIES AND EXPECTED RESULTS: Based on the successful applications process to allocate FY 2006 funds, the USG PEPFAR Task Force will fund ninety small grant projects in FY 2007. These organizations are expected to reach 8,000 OVC with care and support services.

Examples of programs funded in FY 2006 include: Umvoti AIDS Center: This NGO is located in KwaZulu-Natal province. Umvoti AIDS Center uses home-based caregivers to reach OVC in their community. In the course of their work, the home-based caregivers have discovered a great need for children to be assisted with the trauma of nursing dying parents and dealing with the subsequent grief, mourning and loss that follows while often still caring for the remaining siblings. A small grant of $9,165 will support psychosocial support including bereavement training workshops for caregivers, some training equipment and stipends to support the caregivers to continue to provide home-based care. The caregivers will reach 660 OVC.

The Luvuyo Drop-in Center is a CBO located in the Northern Cape province that will feed 90 school-aged children and 35 toddlers daily. The small grant of $10,000 will be used to purchase kitchen equipment, dishes, pots and other utensils and will provide stipends for caregivers.

These activities support the South Africa Mission's Five Year Strategy by providing support to and building capacity in small local organizations working at the community level. These activities also contribute to the PEPFAR goals of providing care and service to 10 million HIV-affected individuals, including orphans and vulnerable children.

These funds will support the management and staffing expenses of Ambassador's HIV/AIDS Small Grants program which has grown significantly from FY 2006 ($700,000) and FY 2005 ($450,000).In FY 2007, the Small Grants program will be $1.2 million. Because of the increased size of the program, the number of hours for the Small Grants Coordinator at the Embassy and Consulates needs to increase. At the US Embassy the Small Grants Coordinator the part-time coordinator will become full-time. At the Johannesburg and Cape Town Consulates, the part-time coordinators will increase their time from 20 hours per week to 28 hours per week. In Durban the part-time coordinator will increase from 24 hours to 32 hours per week. The Durban coordinator requires more hours because the Consulate manages more funds than Cape Town or Johannesburg (e.g. $210,000 versus $140,000). The remaining funding will be used for travel and capacity building workshops.

The total management and staffing budget for the Small Grants is $100,000. Within the total budget, the cost of ICASS is estimated at $ 13,888.

Table 5: Planned Data Collection

Is an AIDS indicator Survey(AIS) planned for fiscal year 2007?  Yes
No If yes, Will HIV testing be included?  Yes  No When will preliminary data be available? Is an Demographic and Health Survey(DHS) planned for fiscal year 2007?  Yes
No If yes, Will HIV testing be included?  Yes  No When will preliminary data be available? Is a Health Facility Survey planned for fiscal year 2007?  Yes
No When will preliminary data be available? Is an Anc Surveillance Study planned for fiscal year 2007?
Yes  No if yes, approximately how many service delivery sites will it cover? 400 When will preliminary data be available? 7/1/2008

Is an analysis or updating of information about the health care workforce or the
Yes  No workforce requirements corresponding to EP goals for your country planned for fiscal year 2007?

Other significant data collection activities

Name: National HIV and AIDS Communication Survey Brief description of the data collection activity: The Second National HIV and AIDS Communication Survey will provide more in-depth information about the communication environment, impact of communication interventions both generally and specifically. No other survey captures as much information which is extremely valuable in informing both the SA Government's communication programmes and individual communication interventions of NGOs, CBOs and FBOs. The findings are disseminated through a series of workshops to more than 500 key stakeholders throughout the country. The survey is a collaborative effort between the SAG, JHU/CCP and Soul City (funded by PEPFAR) and other key communication projects. This survey will be supported by PEPFAR. Preliminary data available: August 01, 2008

Name: South African National HIV Prevalence, HIV Incidence and Communication Survey (HSRC/Nelson Mandela Foundation) Brief description of the data collection activity: The South African National HIV Prevalence, HIV Incidence and Communication Survey is a national level household survey, which includes HIV testing through dried blood spot collection. This survey is done every three years and collects data which is key for tracking HIV and associated determinants over time. This allows for an examination of trends over time in social, demographic and HIV incidence/prevalence data. This survey will be supported by PEPFAR through CDC. Preliminary data available: December 01, 2008