Int Conf AIDS 2002 Jul 7-12; 14:(abstract no. E11475)
Shrestha S Women Acting Together for Change (WATCH), Kathmandu, Nepal
The pressentation will deal with the Women Acting Together for Change (WATCH)'s attempt to bring together local government agencies, NGOs, media, sex workers, etc. together to raise awareness of HIV/AIDS and expand behavior change initiatives in Ruapndehi district of Nepal. WATCH has been raising awareness of general population through camps using multi-media, literacy classes, school education, and one-to-one contacts; and starting behavior change initiatives through outreach and peer education. It is realized soon that HIV/AIDS epidemic cannot be prevented effectively if various stakeholders did not take part in these initiaves. For this reason, a sex workers' organization was formed and a concerned group with inclusion of local government agencies (District Development Committee and Village Development Committees), NGOs, media, sex workers' organization was formed. This paper will present method and approach used for building this coalition. The concerned group has realized the dangerous situation and started to plan and implement awareness raising and BCI activities. The local goverment agencies have started to allocate some fund for this purpose. WATCH's outreach and peer educators are accepted and welcomed for their initiaves whereas before this they were hated blaming them for encouraging sex workers and distributing condoms. Now the local government agencies are demanding their activities in their area and supporting for awareness raising and BCI activities. Similarly, sex workers were hated by them and communities but they have realized that sex work exists somehow, so rather tha hating criminalizing sex work they have decided to make it safer. Based on this experience, other agencies involved in safer sex initiatives can learn how to form such "concerned groups" and make them effective. It is learnt that if the facilitating organization becomes ready to give credits to such groups then they will become active otherwise they will be inactive.
Keywords: AEGIS, HIV, Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, HIV Infections, HIV Seropositivity, Prostitution, Condoms, Organizations, Health Planning, Safe Sex, Awareness, Government Agencies, Teaching, Nepal, Human, Female, Education, Economics
