India has the hope—and the growing will—to halt the spread of HIV/AIDS. The Government of India has increased funding for HIV/AIDS and has established a national strategic plan that includes community-led HIV prevention. At district and state levels, Indian State AIDS Control Societies develop and implement approaches to prevention, treatment, and care.
The foundation works closely with the government of India at both the national and state levels. In October 2006, the foundation signed a $23 million three year Memorandum of Cooperation (MoC) with the Government of India for technical and management support.
These efforts are making a difference, but more is needed to stop the spread of HIV among India’s millions of high-risk, highly mobile people, including provision of services in the communities where they live and work.
Stopping HIV/AIDS also means helping to create an empowering social environment without stigma. At the local level, high-risk groups need access to HIV prevention services—including information, condoms, and emotional support—and the ability to live with dignity and respect.
The foundation’s Avahan initiative was created to help meet these challenges.
Partnerships and Community Involvement
Avahan is sustained by the strength of its partnerships. We partner with India’s national, state, and district government, non-government organizations, and members of at-risk groups. Community members play a critical role in planning and decision-making in Avahan-supported programs.
The Avahan initiative supplements existing HIV/AIDS efforts in India by providing funding and technical support to a wide range of organizations. Our grants support disease-prevention strategies that are tailored to local needs, encourage peer participation, and empower key populations to improve their lives in the face of the disease.
HIV Prevention
Avahan provides funding and support to ensure that a wide spectrum of practical, proven HIV prevention services are available to those who are infected or at high risk of becoming infected.
Condom Distribution
Condoms are highly effective in reducing the spread of HIV. Each month, Avahan’s partners distribute approximately eight million free condoms in communities at greatest risk. They achieve this distribution through a dynamic peer network and vending machines at truck stops, health clinics, and roadside restaurants and shops.
STI Testing and Treatment
Avahan’s partners support medical clinics and train doctors in towns with large, high-risk populations. The clinics provide HIV prevention education, condoms, treatment for sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and counseling. Mobile STI treatment vans and tents are set up in outlying communities and day clinics are held in cooperating brothels.
Peer-to-Peer Outreach
Stopping the spread of HIV in India is best done from the ground up, by peers talking to peers. Through this approach, members of at-risk groups—sex workers, their clients and partners, high-risk men who have sex with men, and injecting drug users—provide outreach within their own communities. They identify who is at risk and give support and information that helps improve attendance at STI clinics and self-help programs.
Community Empowerment
Community mobilization and ownership underlies all Avahan-supported programs. Above all, we seek to empower people to take control of their lives and solve problems collectively. Long-distance truckers, for example, often help decide how to use truck stops as one-stop shops for HIV prevention services. Some sex workers have united to develop shared-savings schemes, and others have established a 24-hour response network in response to violence and harassment. Similar programs have been shaped to support peer involvement among injecting drug users.
Stigma Reduction
Education and information can help remove the social fears that lead to stigmatization. Avahan’s partners regularly use public dialogue and the mass-media to deliver messages that remove the shame from condom use. Television, cinemas, radio, billboards, and mobile shows are bringing HIV/AIDS into the open as a disease that affects all people.
Advocacy
Long-term prevention of HIV/AIDS requires the sustained efforts of government and civil society. Avahan collaborates with partners to advocate for increased funding and political support for HIV prevention, and greater discussion of HIV/AIDS. Our advocacy includes informing at-risk groups about their legal rights, as well as wider public education and mass media outreach. We collaborate with Bollywood celebrities, sports stars, and business leaders who headline events and talk to millions of people every day through public service announcements.
Access to Testing, Care, and Treatment
Avahan-supported programs collaborate with government facilities that providing voluntary counseling, testing, care, and treatment for HIV and TB.