In FY 2007, the Children's AIDS Fund (CAF) Uganda and Uganda Youth Forum (UYF), its principal partner

in the five-year USAID-supported project, Preserving the African Family in the Face of HIV/AIDS through

Prevention, focused all efforts on initiating HIV/AIDS prevention outreach sites in seventeen sub-counties in

Kampala, Kayunga, Mpigi, Mukono, Wakiso and Luweero. By June 30, 2007, CAF Uganda and UYF had

jointly reached 25,000 youth and adults with HIV/AIDS prevention messages. In FY 2008, CAF will seek to

further consolidate the gains made to date in establishing program presence and outreach, while

strengthening depth and breadth of programming, and ensuring project sustainability.

Throughout FY 2007, several technical refinements were considered, with significant positive potential for

the project. Adjustments made based on these inputs will be fully executed in FY 2008. CAF Uganda and

UYF will more vigorously pursue integration with the national HIV/AIDS response, through the Uganda AIDS

Commission (UAC), National HIV/AIDS Prevention Committee (NHPC), the Ministry of Gender, Labor and

Social Development (MOGLSD), and district structures (DDHS, HIV/AIDS focal persons, and Youth

Councils). Coordination meetings will be held with key contacts in these entities prior to program initiation,

and project semi-annual reports will be shared. In addition, UYF will more closely follow CAF's community

model, through which Local Councils (LCs) will be highly involved in program planning and coordination,

and outreach is locally coordinated.

To retain the strategic approach of building sustainable local capacity to implement HIV prevention

activities, the project will devolve management activities to the CAF Uganda office. Additionally, the project

will invest in deepening existing community involvement. Efforts to mobilize key community constituents

and leadership groups will focus on maintenance of established relationships in the 17 sub-counties with

established operations.

CAF Uganda and UYF will pursue a more highly integrated project model, and joint implementation

strategy. The No Apologies curriculum originally utilized by UYF will be replaced with the Choose Life

curriculum, currently in use by CAF Uganda, in support of the peer education and adult outreach strategy.

The Peer Education strategy will focus on engaging 20,000 male and 30,000 female youth, aged 10 - 24,

with key HIV prevention messages. In the first quarter of FY 2008, CAF and UYF will train 33 additional

peer facilitators selected from the various communities of operation, bringing the total number to 80 peer

facilitators operating under the project aegis. Anchored by the Choose Life curriculum, Peer Education

activities will focus on providing comprehensive knowledge on HIV/AIDS and STIs (including HSV-2)

transmission and prevention, pertinent life skills, and heightening youth perception.

The project will collaborate with the YEAH National Campaign on IEC materials, training opportunities, and

other technical resources to ensure that youth reached by the project will be targeted with gender-based

messaging that focuses on male responsibility, female refusal skills and knowledge, and the risks and

dangers of coercive sex. YEAH Campaign messages related to alcohol and drug abuse will be

incorporated to complement messages in the selected Choose Life curricula.

As they are developed, CAF Uganda and UYF will fully integrate referral support into all activities. The

project will aim to equip all trained facilitators with basic counseling skills, information and linkages with

experienced local health support services for counseling, testing and condom provision.

As a corollary to the youth-centered activities, parent-child communication activities will be enhanced to

focus on imparting information and knowledge about youth HIV vulnerability to parents, while

simultaneously increasing their communication skills. Parents, caregivers, and influential adults will be

targeted with curriculum-based key messages. Community dialogue methodology will be utilized to bring

together youth and adults reached by the program to build critical consensus and bridge communication

gaps on key cross-cutting themes such as general perceptions of HIV/AIDS vulnerability, substance abuse

linkage to HIV transmission, and community attitudes and support.

The vulnerability profiles of the communities in which Preserving the African Family in the Face of HIV/AIDS

Through Prevention operates suggests that the youth in these communities may be considered to be higher

risk youth, as compared with the national status. While the median age of first sex for females and males

aged 20 - 24 is comparable to the national average, at 17 years and 18 years respectively, the percentage

of young men and women aged 15 - 19 and 20 - 24 residing in the areas of operation, who reported sexual

debut before the age of 15 is slightly higher for all gender/age categories sampled in a baseline

assessment. For this reason, the project will focus its efforts on maximizing youth exposure to project

activities and the key messages, through multiple contacts. In addition, a mid-term review (MTR) exercise

will be conducted in the second half of FY 2008, to assess the project's progress towards achieving its

goals. Based on the MTR finding, mid-course corrections on project strategy will be implemented as

necessary.

During the first half of FY 2008, the program will strengthen quality control mechanisms and structures to

ensure fidelity of program implementation. Monthly program coordination sessions, semi-annual program

review meetings, and semi-annual refresher trainings will ensure maximum interface of trained facilitators

with CAF program staff.

The technical assistance and capacity building aspect of the project will be restructured to more directly

equip UYF. All project staff will participate in USAID and PEPFAR initiated capacity building activities. In

addition, CAF will promote staff and partner participation in training opportunities provided by local capacity-

building organizations.