HIV / AIDS

Our recent articles

AIDS Rights Congo: promoting the rights of HIV positive

What does access to education and healthcare means for indigenous women in Congo?

Empowering indigenous women to fight against HIV/AIDS

AIDS Rights Congo: stories of stigma and hope

Our activities in this program

Advocacy on sexual and reproductive rights and the universal periodic review process (UPR)

AZUR Development mobilized other organizations in the Réseau Sida Afrique network network in Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Congo and Chad in the drafting of reports on sexual and reproductive rights in the framework of the universal periodic review process (UPR). With the support of the Sexual Rights Initiative, these reports have been submitted to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. These reports contain information on problems, legal issues and recommendations. The report of Burkina Faso is already accessible on line.
 
The next step is to hold meetings in countries with NGOs in countries that have submitted reports or working on the issues, talk about the UPR process, and also monitor the recommendations. AZUR Development is currently seeking funds for these activities.

Rights of women living with HIV/AIDS and their families

AZUR Development is also working to integrate gender issues in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Such actions are carried out in Congo and across Africa through the Réseau Sida Afrique network. For example, in 2008, we organized a reflection, a survey and workshops to develop recommendations on issues sensitive to gender and the rights of women living with HIV and vulnerable groups such as indigenous women to be presented to the committee to draft the national strategy against AIDS 2008-2012.

We are also engaged in promoting the rights of HIV positive women and their families and conduct national and regional activities. We have also conducted activities around the ICASA 2008 in Dakar, including preparatory activities to collect issues for advocacy, analytical articles to inform members of the network and other organizations on advocacy for the rights of HIV positive women, and the inclusion of the issue of HIV/AIDS and malaria co-infection HIV/AIDS in the debates and activities of AIDS organizations. A press conference was held at ICASA 2008 by members of the Réseau Sida Afrique network attending the event. There were also informal meetings organized and blogging on the key issues discussed at the ICASA. 

We also worked with HIV-positive women and their husbands in Nkayi in Congo to develop strategies to fight against discrimination and stigma they face, discuss their rights and duties and also their reproductive health rights.
Our activities related to information, mobilization and advocacy on the rights of women living with HIV; and our activities during ICASA s Urgent Action Fund Africa, Sexual Rights Initiative and Rising Voices.
Building capacity of organizations fighting against AIDS in defending the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS

People living with HIV/AIDS are victims of daily discrimination and stigma their families, society,  colleagues at work, their employers and others. Within this framework AZUR Development and  Réseau Sida Afrique network have developed this project which has involved over 30 organizations in the fight against AIDS and human rights in 10 African countries, including Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, DRC, Gabon, Ivory Coast, Mali, Togo and Senegal.

In May 2008, AZUR Development with its partners organized a regional workshop on the rights and duties of people living with HIV/AIDS in Central and West Africa in Brazzaville, Congo. The participants made recommendations to policymakers on the legal support for people living with HIV/AIDS. They had their skills developed on the understanding the rights of HIV positive people and the means and instruments for defense of these rights.

The participant(s) in the workshop back to their countries have carried out actions and advocacy on the rights and duties of people living with HIV/AIDS. For example, national workshops on the rights and on strategies to fight against discrimination and stigma have been organized in Benin (with the support of UNFPA),Burkina Faso, Congo and the DRC; radio programmes and articles in the press have been published; a training organized for para legal to assist HIV positive women in Togo, meetings and sharing with HIV positive people in Congo, DRC and Togo; identification of cases of violation of these rights and other actions have been conducted in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Mali and other countries.

This project was supported by the National Endowment for Democracy, the country office of UNAIDS and the company Zain Congo.

Access to treatment and care for HIV positive indigenous women

The project home based care for indigenous women living with HIV in Lékoumou, called pygmies, is the first of its kind and aims to train providers for home care of HIV positive indigenous women in the department of Lékoumou in Congo. This project provides for training on psychological and social care of  people living with HIV/AIDS, home visits, and talks (open and closed), and support for the transportation of HIV positive indigenous women to Sibiti hospital for treatment and care.

Indeed, to this day, people with HIV in particular in the Lékoumou region aren’t receiving any psychological and social care. Those living in rural areas have no means to travel regularly to Sibiti for biological examinations, treatment and counselling, which often justifies a discontinuation of treatment.
This project is an initiative of the Association AZUR Development and the Congolese Association for the Integration of Peoples (ACIP) which is supported by the Planet Wheeler Foundation.

Advocacy for the fight against malaria: involving media and civil society organizations

A media campaign project on malaria is implemented in 9 countries in Francophone Africa:  Benin, Cameroon, Congo, Central African Republic, DRC, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger and Togo. The project is implemented by members of the Réseau Sida Afrique network and AZUR Development with support from  Malaria Consortium in the framework of the Malaria for Africa Partnership initiative funded by GSK. Workshops, newspaper articles, radio spots, radio and television programmes and reports to analyze the situation on malaria in 10 countries have been made. Some of these reports are available on this blog http://malariaafrica.wordpress.com/

The actors in the fight against malaria also exchanged through online training on the development of strategies to fight against malaria and online discussions on malaria. Go to this link, if you want to join the discussion group on malaria in Francophone Africa http://groups.google.fr/group/formationpaludisme.

 Support for HIV-positive women and their families

In order to develop the leadership of those affected and infected by HIV in the fight for their rights and in particular greater support for HIV-positive women living in rural areas in the department of Bouenza in Congo, we started a partnership with the Association Espoir et Vie of Congo (AVEC). There are activities on the rights of people infected and affected by HIV have planned for this year, in addition to those that have already been conducted.

Our history of working with HIV-positive women dates back to a workshop on palliative care workshop on palliative care in December 2005 in Pointe-Noire, which enabled us to continue our work supporting 121 vulnerable people affected by HIV/AIDS by providing psychological and nutrition support, home visits and access to medicines. In partnership with a people living with AIDS organization called ESPOIR, the project supported the psychosocial care of 121 people living with AIDS in Pointe-Noire for a period 4 months. Four major activities were undertaken: the talks (open or closed), attended by more than 100 people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) with more than half of the participants were made up of women who are the most vulnerable and infected more than men, home visits to more than 50 PLWHA, medical care (ARVs) to 15 PLWHA during 3 months and support for advocacy. The project was completed in February 2007.

Prevention against HIV

Our volunteers in the country are engaged in prevention against HIV. In 2008, we have carried out activities in Pointe-Noire and Nkayi with the support of the National AIDS Committee (CNLS) for youth in the districts of Voungou Loussala in Pointe-Noire and 500 single men heads of households in Nkayi. During the World AIDS day, we organize activities such as awareness day in December 2008 for girls and boys of the high school of Nkayi.

Global Campaign on the Right to Health care

As part of the campaign right to healthcare initiated by Popular Movement for Health (PHM), a working group led by AZUR Development and other organizations working in health and HIV/AIDS, as well as an organization of indigenous people, has worked on the evaluation of the right to healthcare  in  Congo.

The Executive Director of AZUR Development is also responsible for coordinating the campaign right to healthcare in Francophone Africa, which is conducted by members of the Réseau Sida Afrique network and other PHM circles in various African countries. To this end, she met and held meetings with members of country clubs in Cameroon, Mali, Togo and the DRC.

 In November 2008, at the initiative of AZUR Development, members of country PHM circles in Cameroon, Congo, Mali and the DRC have presented their experiences in a panel entitled: building a movement for women based on the right to healthcare, case of the Right to Healthcare campaign  during the AWID Forum in Cape Town.

Digital Stories and Web 2.0 for advocacy for the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS in Congo

Our project aims to create an online observatory on the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS project aims to create an online observatory on the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS in Congo. We train communication officers of AIDS and HIV positive organizations in digital storytelling, podcasting and the creation of blogs to document the stigma and discrimination of people infected and affected by HIV / AIDS in Congo for use as a tool for advocacy and education for the promotion and defense of the rights of people infected with HIV.

 We have also provided them with digital cameras. Each communication officers is committed to writing blog posts that describes how the AIDS pandemic is currently affecting the local community where he or she lives and what is the daily life of people living with HIV/AIDS in the country. The project is planning to expand this year to increase traffic on its blog http://aidsrightscongo.org/and involve more young people. This project is funded by Rising Voices/

Networking in Africa in the fight against HIV/AIDS and Malaria

The role of the Réseau Sida Afrique network is to strengthen the efforts for the fight against HIV/AIDS and malaria of its members. With over 300 individual and institutional members in 17 African countries and the Diaspora, the Réseau Sida Afrique network allows different activists and professionals to learn, share and develop partnerships for joint action. It remains to this day, one of the main French regional platforms on health and has the advantage of gathering both urban and rural organizations. The network website www.reseausida.org and the blog
http://reseausida.blogspot.com have become valuable tools for the movement against HIV AIDS and malaria. Activists, health policy makers and people living with HIV/AIDS share and develop strategies to meet the needs of communities and  the integration of a gender approach in their work. They offer resources and articles that link the national to the international, to ensure that national activists can take advantage of advanced information on health policy and work to reduce HIV/AIDS and malaria in the countries.

The Réseau Sida Afrique network has a dynamic and high traffic online discussion list that provides an open space for opinions and discussions with stakeholders on HIV/AIDS, malaria and general health. Incubator for new ideas or space to raise the challenge questions. Edge of what works and what does not work in the country and recommends actions needed. Demystifies the jargon of health policy and technical language.

URL of the list http://dgroups.org/groups/ReseauSidaAfriqueeForum

Members of this network are also working on joint projects and it provides members an opportunity to engage and mobilize resources. There are various projects such as advocacy on malaria, the campaign on the right to healthcare, and advocacy for the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS. Furthermore, AZUR Development provides the secretariat for the Réseau Sida Afrique network and is responsible for several of its initiatives.

Site co-designed by Mom & Pop Media and Block, Street & Building - wendze.com