TITLE: HIV Prevention among Youth through Abstinence and Risk Avoidance (ARK)

NEED and COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGE: The program intends to expand and strengthen HIV prevention

through promotion of positive social norms that reduce youth's risk of becoming HIV positive; primarily

abstinence, faithfulness, and mutual monogamy while creating supportive family and community

environments toward an HIV-free generation of youth. The transformative power of the program lies in

small, self-actualizing groups such as young people, parents, faith-based organizations (FBOs) and

community-based organizations (CBOs). Strategic communication approaches are used to support and

reinforce healthy social norms thus contributing to World Vision's (WV's) transformational development (TD)

philosophy. TD has a unique framework with five areas for desired change: well being of youth, empowered

youth, transformed relationships, interdependent and empowered communities, and transformed systems

and structures.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS: Over 1,703 youth were trained as peer educators and coaches to promote A&B

behaviors reaching 70,620 youth. This number exceeds the annual target by the end of September 2007 by

34,262. Four-hundred and twenty-eight parents and responsible adults were trained to educate other adults

to support youth to make healthy choices. Over 10, 800 people were reached through CGMP (Common

Ground Melting Pot) meetings and theatre by the end of June 2007. The ‘pot' is the meeting and the

ingredients (people and ideas) of the pot are combined so that one agreed upon action plan is created.

ARK trained 154 schoolteachers who established over 100 school health clubs. Teachers conducted

orientation to staff to support intra and inter-schools activities such as debates, drama, music festivals, and

essay writing completions. Two-hundred and thirty-nine FBOs were trained to disseminate ARK messages

among their congregations through weekly sermons, youth camps, and other church activities.

Strengthened radio discussion programs through three radio stations, namely; Radio Maria, Radio Abood,

and Orkonerei Radio. Forty-two listener groups were established, and the discussions have enabled 1,260

young people and parents to initiate discussions about sex issues and HIV prevention.

ACTIVITIES: 1) Strengthen youth capacity to practice A&/or B behaviors in order to prevent HIV

transmission. Fifteen new youth advisory groups (YAGs) at ward levels and 140 youth action groups (yags)

at village/sub-village levels will be established, while approximately 60 existing YAGs and 290 new YAGs

will be strengthened. 1a) Train youth in interpersonal communication, life skills and transformational

development, and provide support to develop and roll-out personal and group development plans. 1b)

Outreach to out-of-school youth through the YAGs, theatre and radio listener group activities will be

established to support the various youth action groups to reach approximately 131,000 youth. Youth will

continue to be encouraged to go for VCT in addition to holding joint VCT sessions with MOH during farmers'

week, etc.

2) Increase capacity of families, CBOs and FBOs to support abstinence and faithfulness among youth.

Fifteen new Parent Advisory Groups (PAG) and 30 parent action groups (PAGs) will be established, 25

existing PAGs will be strengthened, and five existing government district advisory committees (DACs) will

be strengthened through quarterly feedback and action-planning sessions. Through these groups,

approximately 47,100 parents and responsible adults will be oriented to the program and trained on HIV

prevention, communicating sexuality and transformational development, as well as the development and roll

out of action plans. Fifty community leaders and 200 church leaders will be trained on ARK branded life skill

manuals. The leaders will facilitate 180 youth-adult dialogue and 20 CGMP meetings to promote

communication between youth and adults and adoption of the A&B behaviors. Build capacity of all

individuals involved in the program to disseminate accurate messages and provide effective coaching and

mentoring for youth and responsible adults, and promote the adoption of the A&B behaviors. Using the

cascade approach to training, the district level trainers will conduct downstream training for 150 district

facilitators, who will train/orient a further 2,220 action group members and volunteers (coaches and peer

educators). Ten thousand ARK Passports for youth and 1,000 ARK facilitation guides for youth (10-14 and

15-24) and adults will be re-printed. ARK passports are extending tools given to each youth after completing

the training; a personal booklet to reinforce the learning and also a self-monitoring and goal-setting tool. To

expand the on-going dialogue about HIV prevention and the broader issues of sexuality, the ARK program

team will expand radio programming to reach four districts from the current three districts. Two additional

radio stations will be identified to broadcast programs targeting communities in Karagwe and Hai districts,

while activities with the existing three will be strengthened. Eight radio spots will be produced and

approximately 260 discussion programs will be broadcast throughout the year while 80 listener groups will

be established and 40 radio presenters will be trained. These activities are provided by JHUCCP as sub

recipients and are coordinated closely with other USG radio programming partners such as STRADCOM

etc.

3) Create enabling environment for A&/or B behaviors. Fifty government officials will be sensitized at

various levels (district, division, ward and village) to generate their involvement in planning and

implementation of the ARK interventions within their areas of jurisdiction. Given the increasing demand by

neighboring communities outside of ADPs, ARK in collaboration with MOH/MOE will expand to adjacent

communities in at least two districts.

LINKAGES: Abstinence and Risk Avoidance program (ARK) has a very strong and well defined link with all

WV Area Development Programs (ADP), existing community groups such as drama groups and Community

Care Coalitions (CCCs) working with OVC at the community level. The program also works with churches

and mosques (FBOs), CBOs, and other HIV/AIDS programs at community and district level. ARK works

with United African American Community Centre (UAACC), Huduma Integrated Medical Services (HIMS),

Centre for Education Development in Health Arusha (CEDHA) and Family Health International (FHI) and

FEMINA at national level and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Communication

Programs (JHU/CCP) at the international level. ARK also coordinates closely with other USG AB and OP

partners to ensure that radio programming is not duplicative.

CHECK BOXES: Abstinence and Risk Avoidance program (ARK) put emphasis on expanding and

strengthening HIV prevention through promotion of positive social norms that reduces 10-24 youth's risk of

becoming infected with HIV through primary and secondary abstinence, faithfulness and mutual monogamy

while creating supportive family and community environments toward a preferred future context. This will be

achieved by building youth capacity to practice A&B behaviors through trainings and outreaches, increase

capacity of families, CBOs and FBOs to support abstinence and faithfulness among youth.

M&E: ARK uses the Observing U Check How (OUCH); a quality improvement checklist to assess the quality

Activity Narrative: of the delivery of training/facilitation. The tool also is used as a job aid to self-assess the trainers/facilitators

own performance. The ARK team plans to make one visit to every district per month to insure quality,

provide outreaches, observe ongoing education, validate reports, affirm trainees, provide immediate

feedback to current and planned activities, and as needed, also to impart new knowledge and skills.

SUSTAINABILITY: ARK has been designed with sustainability-promoting activities at the outset. Apart from

its focus on sustained, positive behavior change at individual, group, family, and community levels, ARK has

capitalized on WV's long-term Area Development Programs. As lead agency, WV has been contributing

matching funds for activities such as midterm review to determine individual and group motivation for

behavior change and training in grant compliance. Through WV's ADP managed by community committees,

more trainings are conducted to build capacity of community based organizations including FBOs to take

over the program. This strong platform of implementation is well utilized by ARK program through its

technical assistance from the Johns Hopkins University which has developed training materials and

communication methodologies that will continue to be used by World Vision and ARK collaborators such as

HIMS, UAACC, FBOs, CBOs, School Health clubs and other community based leaders.