International Youth Foundation (IYF) is an international organization dedicated to supporting programs that

improve the conditions and prospects for young people where they live, learn, work, and play. Established

in 1990, IYF works with many companies, foundations and NGOs to strengthen and ‘scale up' proven

programs that are making a positive and lasting difference in young lives. Since its founding, IYF and its

partners have helped equip millions of young people with the life skills, education, job training, values and

opportunities so critical to their success. The IYF's Empowering Africa's Young people Initiative (EAYPI)

project covers three countries- Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia and supports the four strategic objectives

indicated below.

This activity is a continuation from FY 2008 and has been updated for targets and budgets only. IYF is

implementing the empowering Africa's young people initiative project whose goal is to scale up evidence-

based programs that promote healthy behaviors to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS among youth, aged 10

to 24 years in Uganda. Activities comprise training of trainers, and peer educators to promote abstinence,

fidelity and address issues such as partner reduction, stigma, and discrimination while simultaneously

engaging parents, communities and trusted adults in supporting individual behavior change among the

youth. The project is implemented through five youth-serving sub-grantee organizations namely: The

Uganda Red Cross Society; Uganda Scouts Association; Uganda Girl Guides Association; Young Women's

Christian Association, and the Source of the Nile Award. The five organizations formed an Alliance (Uganda

Youth Empowerment Alliance, UYEA); where the Alliance Secretariat serves as the coordination office. In

FY2008, 2,642 unique individuals were trained and 135,881 people were reached with AB messages.

During the FY2009 period, 3,139 new unique individuals (2,584 youth and 555 adults) will be trained to

promote AB and 1,047 individuals (814 youth and 233 adults) will be refreshed with AB messages. A total

of 134,307 people (116,824 young people and 17,483 adults) will be reached with AB messages through

four integrated and reinforcing strategic objectives in the 10 districts of Kampala, Iganga, Kabale, Hoima,

Lira, Kayunga, Kamuli, Budaka, Tororo, and Wakiso. Lira district has a number of Internally Displaced

People s who are a major target for this program.

i) Scaling up skills based HIV prevention education, especially for younger youth and girls: At least 2,620

peer educators will be trained using the cascade peer training model and workshop training setting. The

purpose of the training is to equip peer educators with facilitation and communication skills for disseminating

accurate and correct AB messages, and to provide life skills necessary for practicing AB. The training will

also equip peer educators with skills to pass on to the peers on how to deal with peer pressure, and to refer

young people that need other services like VCT, STD management, correct and consistent condom use,

and social services that address issues of sexual violence. The trained peer educators will reach a total of

116,824 young people, in and out of school, through a series of one-to-one contacts, guided group peer

education interactions, community outreaches and enter-education youth activities, all focused on

abstinence and behavior change for the youth.. Other topics to be covered will include VCT, increased risk

among people with multiple concurrent partners, vulnerability of girls to sexual exploitation and coercion as

well as male norms and behavior. The young people will be reached through existing sub-grantee youth

forums like youth clubs, school debates, sports activities, blood donor clubs, jamborees and expeditions.

Resource materials will be identified from other partners and distributed to the peer educators to help them

carry out their work satisfactorily. These will include activity kits containing games, pamphlets, posters

material.

ii) Stimulating broad based community discourse on health norms and risky behavior: In FY 2009, a total of

1,822 adults and other community members will be reached through district and sub-county meetings.

Working through established sub-grantee adult and community networks, community participatory dialogue

and action planning outreaches will be conducted with a focus on identifying and recognizing prevailing

youth health norms, gender issues, youth risky behaviors, advocacy issues related to stigma and

discrimination, and ways that communities can use the information to address the identified risk behaviors

predisposing young people to HIV. Target audience includes adult members and volunteers of the sub-

grantees, parents, teachers, cultural leaders, scouts and girl guides masters in schools, civic leaders,

politicians, women and youth leaders, community resource persons, and other volunteer groups. The target

audience will be reached through forums such as, the YWCA adult clubs that comprise parents, influential

leaders, and community members; Red Cross community blood donor clubs; Scouts and girl guides open

troops in the communities. These will be provided with accurate information and AB Behavior Change

Communication (BCC) materials to dispel misinformation, and they will draw up action plans to address the

identified issues. A cadre of community facilitators will be recruited from existing sub-grantee volunteer staff

and equipped with facilitation skills to conduct adult and community meetings.

iii) Re-enforcing the role of parents and other influential adults: A core team of 345 new community

facilitators will be trained in parent to child communication (PTC). The new and the existing parent to child

communication facilitators will in turn reach 16,700 parents and other influential adults through some of the

existing forums described above. They will mainly focus on PTC, and the role of the family. The training of

trainers and facilitators in PTC and interpersonal communication skills will be done using the materials

adopted from Safe from Harm curriculum developed by Population Services International's (PSI) AIDS Mark

program. Other PSI reference materials will also be used. The trainers and community facilitators will in turn

reach other parents and responsible adults to mitigate the difficulty many parents, teachers, leaders and

other key gatekeepers face in communicating with teens and young people regarding sexuality and the role

of the family in providing an enabling environment for young people to delay sexual debut or be faithful. The

existing sub-grantees structures such as teacher guiders, scout rangers, YWCA adult clubs, youth mentor,

role models and other parent-elder programs will be utilized as forums to strengthen communication skills,

mentoring and role modeling. Furthermore, the adults and the influential people will be provided with

knowledge and skills that will increase their self-esteem and capacity to talk about youth sexuality,

abstinence, fidelity and monogamy, partner reduction and define parental responsibilities to help young

people practice AB behaviors.

iv) Reducing the incidence of sexual coercion and exploitation for younger people: A total of 1,822 adults

and other community members targeted to be reached with outreaches in ii) above will also be reached with

interventions under this objective by the trained community facilitators and older peer educators. This will

build on activities already implemented in FY2008 that included identification of key influential leaders within

Activity Narrative: the communities, and risky behaviors and areas for young people. Community advocacy and sensitization

meetings will be conducted for younger and older males. For younger males, the focus will be on

challenging gender norms about masculinity, the acceptance of early sexual activity, multiple sexual

partners and transactional sex, which are among the drivers of the epidemic in Uganda. These interactions

will be a deliberate effort to impart positive gender sensitive attitudes, practices and behaviors in young

males at an early age as a long term strategy to address sexual violence and exploitation of their female

counterparts. For older males, the focus will be to support counseling, peer education, and community

interventions. These two reinforcing objectives are aimed at addressing equitable gender norms in ABY

HIV/AIDS prevention and addressing high risk sexual behaviors such as multiple concurrent partnerships,

transactional and cross-generational sex, and alcohol and drug abuse. This will help to address the current

major drivers of the epidemic and decreasing on the number of new infections.

Contribution to overall AB program area:

EAYPI has produced a synergistic alliance of organizations that possess a combined HIV/AIDS prevention

expertise, life skills and peer-to-peer education programming as well as expertise in youth development,

and capacity building. This combination of expertise has enabled EAYPI to scale -up culturally appropriate

and technically sound behavior change programs that are contributing to a reduction in HIV prevalence

among the youth in Uganda. The added value of the alliance lies in its ability to support the scale-up of

program activities, to generate program results through the provision and coordination of technical

assistance, leveraging resources and ensuring quality of A and B approaches and messages in the

communities where the affiliates work. EAYPI supports USAID/Uganda strategic objective (SO) #8:

Improved human capacity, the Uganda HIV/AIDS National Strategic Plan 2007/08- 2011/2012, and the

Health Sector Strategic Plan 2005/6-2009/10, through prevention of HIV infection among the youth by

influencing sexual behavior to postpone first sex among young people who have not yet initiated sexual

activity, promoting partner reduction strategies and fidelity in youth who are sexually active and to

encourage secondary abstinence. EAYPI plans to reach 300,000 youth with AB messages by the end of the

five year period, thus contributing significantly to the PEPFAR's five year target.

Links to other activities:

EAYPI will continue to collaborate with the other track 1 ABY partners, the YEAH campaign, students

partnership worldwide (SPW), Walter Reed project, sectoral ministries especially the ministry of gender,

labor and social development, and the Uganda AIDS Commission. These linkages together with district and

community linkages with the district health office and the health services outlets will ensure that young

people reached by the ABY programme can be referred for specialized services like VCT.

New/Continuing Activity: Continuing Activity

Continuing Activity: 14205

Continued Associated Activity Information

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

System ID System ID

14205 4384.08 U.S. Agency for International Youth 6739 1060.08 Empowering $837,500

International Foundation Africa's Young

Development People Initiative

(EAYPI) (IYF

ABY Track 1)

8421 4384.07 U.S. Agency for International Youth 4835 1060.07 AB Track 1/ $939,803

International Foundation Round 2

Development

4384 4384.06 U.S. Agency for International Youth 3333 1060.06 AB Track 1/ $759,792

International Foundation Round 2

Development

Emphasis Areas

Gender

* Addressing male norms and behaviors

* Reducing violence and coercion

Refugees/Internally Displaced Persons

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: