Project Title

Enhancing Prevention and Access to Services for Reduced Vulnerability of Rural Youth to HIV/AIDS in the Three states of India (U.P., Bihar and Rajasthan)

Funding Agency

Duration of the project

DFID-PMO

14 months

Geographical Coverage

Partner NGOs

Six districts of each state Bihar, UP and Rajasthan

• NIDAN
• Bal Mahila Kalyan
• Mandan Bharati Jagruti Samaj
• Kanchan Seva Ashram
• Shama Vikas Samiti
• Institute for Developmental Education and Action (IDEA)

RAJASTHAN

• CECOEDECON
• Society to Uplift Rural Economy (SURE)
• Seva MandirMeera Sansthan
• National Institute for Rural Affairs
• Shikshit Rozgar Kendra Prabandhak Samiti
  

UTTAR PRADESH

• LAXMI
• AWARD
• SABLA
• Daud Memorial Christian Grameen Vikas Samiti
• Social Welfare Institute, Varanasi
• Pandit G B Pant Institute for Studies in Rural Development

Objectives

The project will adopt a three pronged output based objectives -
(a) Information Accessibility,
(b) Services Accessibility and
(c) Enabling Environment

Objective 1: Information Accessibility:The initiatives under this objective would look at "enhancing information and skills amongst young people to make healthy decisions through a gender sensitive, young-people friendly and rights based approach".

Objective 2: Services Accessibility:The initiatives for services accessibility would focus on enhancing equity of services and improve service delivery amongst Young People for counseling and testing related to HIV/AIDS.

Objective 3: Enabling Environment:The project would look at creating an enabling environment at all levels - blocks, districts, and state - for proactive initiatives to mitigate prevalence of HIV/AIDS and reduce Stigma and Discrimination against PLHA (People Living HIV/AIDS)

Project Brief

The Project will address the vulnerability to HIV/AIDS of young people in rural areas. The project envisages enhancing accessibility of young people in rural areas to information and services in a gender equitable and rights based manner, and creating an enabling environment for scaling up similar programmes in the state. Community based Youth Information Centres and Youth Counselling Centres will be established at panchayat and block level respectively for young people to access information. Life skills for out-of-school young people will be enhanced. Young people will be capacitated as peer educators and youth advocates in the three states. The project actively links up with networks with positive people and health systems for enhancing access to counselling and testing and to condoms. Building capacities of service providers in project areas in addition to that of NGOs working on ASRH issue are included. The project will create youth forums at block and district levels and link up existing youth bodies at state and district levels. One of the key components of the project is the linkage of the project with State AIDS Control Societies. KABP study will be done for project intervention sites and shared with SACS. Partnership with SACS in enhancing access of young people to condoms and VCT services are other opportunities that will be explored under this project. By addressing factors that enhance vulnerability to HIV/AIDS like early marriage, sexual behaviour, gender based violence, the project will be able to show district level designs for convergence of NACP - III and RCH - II, and pave way for similar initiatives in the three states. The project components will be systematically transferred by the end of the project (envisaged for over five years) to existing structures in civil society - like schools, youth bodies, Panchayats, NGOs and government health and information infrastructure.MAMTA is implementing the project through a network of NGOs on YRSHR and on Gender and HIV/AIDS related projects. One NGO has been selected to implement in each of the identified districts. MAMTA, as network secretariat, is responsible for technical support, resource distribution, supportive supervision and monitoring and evaluation.