The Children's AIDS Fund (CAF) is a non-profit, non-partisan organization working to mitigate the impact of

HIV/AIDS on children and their families. CAF works with families, communities, charitable organizations,

policy makers, and advocates in the areas of HIV prevention, treatment, care and support in several

countries of Africa and in the United States. Preserving the African Family in the Face of HIV/AIDS Through

Prevention is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), with funds from

the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), under cooperative agreement GPO-A-00-05-

00042-00 with CAF. The project aims to increase the adoption of risk avoidance strategies for the

prevention of sexual transmission of HIV/AIDS among youth ages 10 - 24, through interpersonal

communications, community mobilization strategies, and the promotion of institutional involvement. The

project intends to reach 350,000 individuals with HIV prevention activities that promote abstinence and

faithfulness, by the end of 2010. CAF's program complements its Preserving the African Family in the face

of HIV/AIDS through Treatment and Care (PAFTC) clinic programs providing HIV testing /diagnosis and

treatment for HIV positive clients and HIV affected families in Uganda.

Since activities commenced in FY 2005, the project has reached 82,332 individuals with HIV prevention

activities that emphasize abstinence and faithfulness as HIV prevention strategies, and trained 160

individuals to promote risk avoidance through abstinence and faithfulness. In the first two years of program

implementation, the project mechanism underperformed relative to targets. Radical restructuring of the peer

education system, initiated in FY 2007, has offset earlier challenges. As a result, the project has already

surpassed its targets for FY 2008 by almost 10%, reaching 59,811 youth by the end of July 2008. With the

insight gained from past experience, the project is placed on sounding footing to significantly broaden and

deepen its youth outreach in the areas of operation.

In FY 2006, the project adopted the Choose Life curricula (age-segmented for youth 10-14 and 15+), which

was developed by World Relief International for use in Africa. Eighty five (85) individuals were equipped to

implement this curriculum by trainers from World Relief Kenya. The trained peer facilitators have initiated

peer education activities in over 400 sites, primarily schools and religious and social institutions, to date.

Technical support from the implementation unit of Young Empowered and Healthy (YEAH), a flagship

health communication project of Uganda AIDS Commission (UAC) enabled the project to integrate gender-

transformative messages and approaches into its community-based and peer education efforts. Ten (10)

Training Of Trainers ( TOT ) were trained directly by a national training team from YEAH. In turn, seventy

three (73) implementers were equipped in gender transformative approaches based on the content of two

key YEAH communication packages: Something for Something Love and Be a Man. Twenty-five (25) adult

facilitators have also been trained to facilitate community dialogues that critically examine the role of adults

in youth sexual risk-taking, and the importance of partner reduction among adult males. In addition to the

peer education activities, youth clubs, sports leagues, and other outreach modalities have been utilized to

sustain youth exposure to critical messages, and have mobilized traditionally hard-to-reach out-of-school

youth. Institutional commitment to youth prevention programming and support has been solicited through

presentations to local councils, district leaders, CBO/FBO executives, religious leaders, caregivers, Parent-

teacher associations (PTAs), head-teachers associations, and other influential adults.

The evidence base suggests that the Ugandan epidemic, which is largely fueled by heterosexual contact

and mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS, is in a period of stabilization, after a decade of decline.

Transmission within the context of couples' sero-discordance appears to be a significant contributor to the

epidemic, with risk of acquiring HIV increasing exponentially between the ages of 20 and 30 for both sexes.

As a result, there is a strong need for HIV prevention interventions focused on partner reduction/faithfulness

among young married couples. The evidence also indicates that early marriages amongst females in rural

areas, and limited access to health services may contribute to general vulnerability in late-youth (between

ages of 20 and 29).

Expanding target audience categories: For the reasons listed above, in FY 2009 and FY 2010, the project

will expand its focus to include young individuals who are currently married, in long-term relationships,

and/or are previously married (ages 15-29); and will strengthen its outreach among youth who have aged

out of the primary and secondary educational system (out-of-school youth aged 15-24). These two

audiences, along with in-school youth between ages of 10 and 24 who have been the project's core

audience, will be targeted with activities to strengthen life-skills and comprehensive knowledge about

HIV/AIDS. To reach the young married couples, CAF will leverage existing communication materials to

promote faithfulness messages, including Catholic Relief Service's "Faithful House" curriculum, and

"Faithfulness in Marriage", a curriculum developed jointly by AERDO and Food for the Hungry

Expanding geographic coverage: Both CAF and its implementing partner, Uganda Youth Forum (UYF), will

slightly expand the areas of operation, in response to community demands. While both entities will continue

activities in the five districts of Kampala, Mpigi, Luweero, Wakiso and Mukono, CAF will operate in thirteen

(13) additional sub-counties, increasing the number of sub-counties in which it works to 35 sub-counties.

UYF will expand its activities, and will cover five (5) additional parishes within the five (5) divisions of

Kampala, increasing its presence to 20 parishes.

Strengthening Program Quality: The project will focus on broadening the quality and intensity of HIV

prevention activities, by: i) Increasing the exposure of youth participants from approximately 6 hours to 8-12

hours of curriculum-guided activity; ii) increasing support/follow-up activities through the scaling up of youth

clubs; iii) Increasing the utilization of creative approaches such as peer-to-peer outreach,

edutainment/entereducation activities, community dialogues, and youth competitions, to cater for youths

who are less amenable to the traditional curriculum-based outreach; (iv) Support materials that reinforce

core project messages and enhance comprehensive knowledge will be reproduced to support interpersonal

communication strategies, including the one-on-one outreach and curriculum-based small-group activities;

(v) Translating communication materials into the local language (Luganda) to ensure that non-English

speaking audiences are reached

Consolidating Peer Education and Peer Outreach efforts: The peer education aspect of the project will be

expanded to enable greater institutional buy-in, and actualize the goal of community-driven programming.

In FY 2009 and FY 2010, 370 individuals will be selected and trained to support school- and community-

Activity Narrative: based peer education activities. We intend to maintain a volunteer group of 320 individuals with training of

50 individuals to compensate for attrition after the first year. In FY 2009 the project will deepen its

relationships with private schools which are not full participants in the current PIASCY (school-based HIV

prevention) effort. This will be accomplished by investing in training, staff sensitization and material support

to ensure that schools buy into curriculum-based activities, youth support activities, and improved

institutional policies to reduce youth risk. Youth clubs and groups supported by the project will be equipped

to reach their peers with prevention messages through creative avenues such as youth corners, forum

theatre, the performing arts, and sports outreach.

Capitalize on peer affiliations in outreach to out-of-school youth: The project will capitalize on the strong

peer affiliations of out-of-school youth and married youths. These two audiences will be targeted through

community structures that are naturally youth-centric, and will be reached by peer facilitators who are

selected from the established peer structures and social networks. Among this group, project approaches

will also be strengthened to effectively address the practice of multiple, concurrent sexual partners,

transactional, and coercive sex. The project will continue to pursue its technical partnership with YEAH,

and will continue to use its acclaimed communication packages as a foundation for gender-transformative

programming.

Intensify involvement of parents and other custodians of youth: . Available information sources confirm the

centrality of parents to youth decision-making.

The project will continue its work with adults who play a crucial role in the process of youth development

and sexuality, specifically parents, caregivers, and teachers. Community structures such as mothers

unions, fathers unions, boda boda cyclist associations, and church-based "marrieds" groups, will be co-

opted into the project's community outreach, by training facilitators from these groups, and equipping them

with materials to support their activities. Outreach activities will focus on improving their skills in parent-to-

child dialogue, and will address behavioral practices that directly and indirectly affect youth behaviors,

particularly harmful gender stereotypes and practices, and multiple concurrent sexual partnerships. Parents

and other custodians will be encouraged to participate in existing local committees and district-based peer

education teams, which will be further strengthened to ensure that community-level planning,

implementation, and oversight can occur at an increased level of activity.

Incorporate referral elements at all intervention levels: The project will further expand on work initiated in

FY 2008, to link community-level volunteers with service providers to ensure that youth are referred for

health and relevant psychosocial services including referrals for HCT, HIV Treatment, drug and alcohol

abuse, OVC support, livelihood skills, and other services in the areas, using existing service provision

mapping resources from UNASO, Save the Children, and PEPFAR. Especially in the areas of OVC

support, HCT and treatment special effort will be made to assist youth with accessing services currently

provided by USG funded projects. In response to community, parental, and youth feedback, the project will

engage community-level artisans and artisan groups to provide modest livelihood skills training to 400

highly vulnerable girls and young women, with the aim of reducing their economic vulnerability.

Institutional and Community Capacity Building: During FY 2009 and FY 2010, the project will endeavor to

ensure the sustainability of all activities, by increasing its capacity building efforts at community-level. In FY

2009, peer educators will be selected from institutions which indicate a commitment to incorporating youth

prevention activities and adult outreach strategies into their institutional approaches. In the last year of the

project cycle, the project aims to fully transfer the support supervision and oversight function to community

level, by training and equipping social, cultural, educational, and political institutions that indicate a desire to

collaborate with the project mechanism. Selected institutions will be equipped to leverage additional

resources (both USG and non-USG) to support on-going activities. Finally, the project will develop

relationships with USG-supported institutions for the purposes of capacity building of project staff, both at

the implementing partner-level, and at CAF, to achieve and sustain all activities listed above. These

arrangements will provide staff with enhanced skills in project planning and management, health

communication programming, leadership and team work, resource mobilization, finance management,

monitoring and evaluation, and strategic planning, amongst other skills.

Augment existing monitoring and evaluation efforts: Staff capacity, systems and procedures, will be

strengthened to improve the collection and utilization of qualitative information. Information dissemination

channels will be developed to improve feedback at the district and community levels. Data collection tools

will be adapted to facilitate reporting on referral activities and secondary contacts reached by youth

participants in project activities. The M&E function will be developed to contribute more strongly to the

project learning agenda, through operations research and process evaluation efforts which will be built into

training, support supervision, youth outreach, and community capacity building.

New/Continuing Activity: Continuing Activity

Continuing Activity: 15980

Continued Associated Activity Information

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

System ID System ID

15980 8583.08 U.S. Agency for Children's AIDS 7307 4887.08 Preserving the $224,870

International Fund African Family in

Development the face of

HIV/AIDS (CAF

ABY Track 1)

8583 8583.07 U.S. Agency for Children's AIDS 4887 4887.07 Preserving the $131,666

International Fund African Family in

Development the face of

HIV/AIDS

Through

Prevention

Emphasis Areas

Gender

* Addressing male norms and behaviors

* Reducing violence and coercion

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: