| Research and Evaluation
Planact Documents its Community-based, HIV/AIDS Capacity-building
Efforts
Since mid- 2002, Planact has embarked upon an effort
to capacitate the community structures in which we work
to understand and respond to the HIV/AIDS crisis. We
recently evaluated these experiences, in the four informal
settlements in which our intervention took place, to
help our organization and others learn from these fledgling
efforts to empower communities in the face of a devastating
disease with major implications for the social and economic
fabric of the community.
The communities in which Planact is presently working,
primarily informal settlements inhabited by the very
poor, have been affected dramatically by the HIV/AIDS
pandemic and this in turn has an effect on the possibilities
for long-term service and settlement solutions for these
communities. Can housing and service programmes be financially
sustainable given the likely negative impacts of HIV/AIDS
on income, family structure and the draining of household
and government resources? Can communities cope? It is
difficult to obtain government assistance for HIV/AIDS
interventions or to establish facilities that would
assist the community to address the crisis, especially
in areas where there is no security of tenure and the
settlements are regarded as temporary accommodation.
Planact began with an effort to assess the HIV/AIDS
resources available locally and to develop workshops
geared to community needs. Various HIV/AIDS workshops
have been held in each of the four target communities,
focusing on: awareness, facilitation and co-counselling,
home-based care and nutrition, and strategic planning
and capacity-building. These workshops were intended
to achieve the following outcomes:
- Communities will learn to come to terms with the
facts about HIV/AIDS and be more empowered to prevent
infection.
- Communities will begin to accept people with HIV/AIDS
and learn how to take care of infected persons with
regards to nutrition, medication, and ways to make
those in the last stages of AIDS more comfortable.
- Longer-term planning will begin with regards to
affected households in providing for the people left
behind, i.e. children who will be orphaned by the
loss of the parent.
- Local authorities together with communities will
begin to help address the epidemic by incorporating
HIV/AIDS strategies into their planning processes.
In addition, Planact has assisted communities to begin
to implement creative ways to address the gaps in support
to the HIV/AIDS infected and affected in their communities,
and to access outside sources of support and resources
towards this end. Food gardens represent one example
of such a strategy, and Planact has offered training
and support in the establishment of food gardens which
provide nutritional support to HIV/AIDS-infected persons
as well as the unemployed or pensioners who work on
the gardens.
From the initial awareness and capacity-building workshops
Planact introduced, the emphasis has evolved into the
facilitation of resources and partnerships to help address
the HIV/AIDS crisis in our communities. We documented
the experiences from our intervention in each of the
four communities in the form of a case study, discussing
the achievements and obstacles faced and drawing out
policy implications from this work.
Planact has contributed this case study to an Urban
Sector Network publication bringing together the experiences
of several affiliates, with a view to generating effective
community-based strategies in response to HIV/AIDS.
Jointly funded by the Urban Management Programme of
UN-HABITAT and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation,
the publication, ‘Livelihoods Support for Poor
Households Affected by HIV/AIDS: A compilation of responses
and strategies from the Urban Sector Network’,
is available from the Urban Sector Network, phone (011)
403 3752, website: www.usn.org.za.
(July, 2004)
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