HIV and AIDS

VSO has HIV and AIDS programmes in Africa, Asia and the Pacific. Our objective is to combat stigma, support prevention and increase the availability of treatment, care and support for those infected and affected by HIV and AIDS.

Africa

In Africa, where HIV and AIDS are widespread and have a devastating impact on the lives of millions of people, our work supporting children has become a strong feature. By the end of 2007, 15 million children had been orphaned by HIV and AIDS worldwide (source: UNAIDS). Children as young as 10-years-old are often left to care for younger siblings or must become the family’s main income earner, missing out on the chance to go to school and learn skills that will help them build a successful and healthy future.

VSO offers these children support and therapy to address the impact of HIV and AIDS on their lives, and volunteers are working with agencies that run community schools (non-formal education) to ensure that children who do work or have to care for other members of their family are still able to get an education.

RAISA (Regional AIDS Initiative of Southern Africa)

We also operate the RAISA (Regional AIDS Initiative of Southern Africa), which is an initiative that works to tackle the impact of HIV and AIDS in South Africa, Mozambique, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Namibia. As well as volunteer placements, the programme includes:

• advocacy initiatives to encourage policy change

• networking activity to build links between communities and governments

• small grants to support awareness-raising and income generation activities

• training events, international conferences and learning exchanges.

Asia

In Asia, where HIV and AIDS is not yet as widespread, we work with groups vulnerable to infection to raise awareness about how to prevent the spread of HIV. Those most at risk include street children, sex workers, drug users and males who have sex with males. We also work to increase public understanding about the stigma some groups face and how this affects their ability to access the information and healthcare advice they are entitled to.

Advocacy and campaigning

Inequality between women and men continues to fuel the HIV and AIDS pandemic and to increase the negative impacts on women and girls, and we have highlighted this in our AIDS Agenda international advocacy work. The work calls on governments to recognise that the burden of caring for people living with HIV and AIDS is predominantly being placed on women and girls. These carers are usually unpaid, untrained, unsupported and unrecognised. A number of our programmes are also promoting the involvement of men in community and home-based care and strengthening public health systems to relieve some of the burden on voluntary carers.

It is also a priority for VSO to address the impact of HIV and AIDS in all areas of our work, so work in other goal areas frequently targets people living with HIV and AIDS as a beneficiary group. 

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