SWAKS PRIORITY AREAS

The four priority areas selected reflect the dynamic character of the pandemic. The priority areas also reflect the national framework for combating HIV/AIDS. This will ensure that SWAK’s plan is aligned to the national response to HIV/AIDS but maintains flexibility for SWAK to focus on areas relevant to its capacity and comparative advantage.

Priority1. Prevention of new infections

SWAK aims to reduce new infections among women and girls by addressing the underlying gender factors putting women and girls at risk. This will be achieved through using strategies sensitive to the social and cultural factors determining the gender relations in the target communities. As indicated in previous sections, traditional HIV infection prevention strategies based on the ABC behaviour change approach do not effectively deal with women vulnerability to HIV infection. SWAK will instead focus on the gender factors determining the vulnerability of women and girls.

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Priority 2. Improvement of the quality of life for people infected and affected by HIV/AIDS

There are two important strategies for improving the quality of life of people infected and affected by HIV/AIDS: provision of treatment and care services and protection of their human rights. SWAK will focus on the promotion and protection of human rights of the infected and affected. This is important for two reasons: women and girls constitute a higher percentage of people infected by HIV. Secondly, women are more vulnerable to human rights violations than men. The human rights violations suffered by women and girls include lack of access to their property and inheritance rights and sexual exploitation.

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Priority3. Mitigation of social impact of HIV/AIDS

HIV/AIDS has profound negative impact on all aspects of the community. The capacity of communities to cope with the rapid increase of orphans and child-headed families is overstretched. SWAK’s has prioritised the social impact of HIV/AIDS on families and will seek to improve the coping mechanisms of PLWHA and affected families.

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Priority area 4: Building the capacity of SWAK

SWAK’s capacity gaps have been identified in the previous sections. SWAK has identified the specific capacity building initiatives that will be undertaken to address the challenges identified.

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Strategic Objective 1: To empower about 2 million community members with knowledge of the gender inequalities fuelling HIV infection among women and girls by 2010

Strategic Objective 2: To promote and protect the rights of 8,000 people infected and affected by HIV/AIDS in all SWAK operational areas by 2010

Strategic Objective 3: To build the capacity of over 40,000 households affected by HIV/AIDS to cope with its social economic impact by 2010

Strategic Objective 4: To build the capacity SWAK to be a leader in addressing women and girls vulnerability to HIV/AIDS by 2010