Project Description Avert Society
Duration: September 1999 - June 2011
Partners: National AIDS Control Organization (NACO)
Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India
Maharashtra State AIDS Control Society (MSACS)
Mumbai District AIDS Control Society (MDACS)
Goa State AIDS Control Society (GoaSACS)
Johns Hopkins University/Health Communication Project (JHU/HCP) Hindustan Latex Family Planning Promotion Trust
Geographic Focus: Goa and Maharashtra
Program Profile: The Avert Society is a bilateral program implementing prevention, care and treatment activities in six high-prevalence districts of Maharashtra State, seen as geographic "hot spots" of HIV. Avert has partnered with the Government of India and Maharashtra State to stop the spread of HIV and prevent the disease from further affecting the state's 98 million citizens.
The Avert project focuses on saturating coverage of most-at-risk populations such as commercial sex workers, men who have sex with men, and migrants, implementing community mobilization activities to increase the uptake of counseling and testing, PMTCT, and care and treatment services in the six high-prevalence districts. Additionally, the Avert project is mandated to implement workplace interventions in the entire state.
Avert also serves as the Technical Support Unit (TSU) in Maharashtra and Goa states to support the scale-up and strengthening of HIV/AIDS programs in accordance with the strategies outlined in the third National AIDS Control Program (NACP-III).
In June 2011, the Avert project will enter the third phase of programming. It is expected that Avert will then begin transitioning its direct implementation activities to the State AIDS Control Society (SACS) and focus on providing technical assistance to build the capacity of the SACS and local organizations.
Key Ongoing Activities:
- Support and strengthen the capacity of 51 NGOs/CBOs to saturate the coverage of most-at-risk populations, including migrants, to promote behavior change such as consistent condom use, and seeking STI treatment and counseling and testing.
- Implement 6 link worker programs to mobilize the community to utilize counseling and testing, PMTCT, care and support and ARV treatment services.
- Support 8 drop-in centers to implement home-based care and provide HIV/AIDS services to 2250 orphans and vulnerable children infected and affected by HIV/AIDS.
- Scale-up and strengthen workplace intervention programs with organized and unorganized industrial sectors vulnerable to HIV/AIDS in 6 districts in Maharashtra.
- Conduct activities to ensure a strong evidence base for planning and implementing HIV programs, including mapping studies and studies of access to and quality of services, 5 BSS studies and needs assessments to support demand generation. An Integrated Biological and Behavioral Assessment (IBBA) in the Avert districts has been approved by the Research Group at NACO and will be submitted for ethical clearance.
- As the Technical Support Unit (TSU), fund 19 staff members to build the capacity of MSACS, MDACS and Goa/SACS in grants management, monitoring, institutional capacity building, mainstreaming and public-private-partnership programs. This technical assistance is expected to be phased out by 2012.
Program Achievements and Innovations:
- Over 70 NGO grants supported to implement targeted interventions among MARPs, workplace interventions and care and support programs.
- Created models of HIV prevention programs among short-stay migrants. These programs have been identified as best practices and are being scaled-up in the Avert priority districts.
- Developed models of workplace interventions for public sector and private sector industries, business associations and the unorganized sector and developed methodologies to segment targeting in workplace interventions to ensure that the most-at-risk industrial sectors are reached. Based on these models, workplace interventions are being scaled-up and targeted to those industries and informal workers most vulnerable to HIV/AIDS.
- Over 3,000 peer educators trained to carry out behavior change activities among high-risk groups
- The Avert TSU has played a significant role in assisting the SACS to scale-up and strengthen 84 targeted intervention programs in Maharashtra and 19 in Goa; and 60 PPP programs on ICTC and 1260 STI franchising clinics in Maharashtra. The TSU has assisted the SACS in mainstreaming HIV/AIDS into the National Rural Health Mission, women and child development and Panchayat Raj departments.
- BSS is being expanded from the original Avert priority districts to the entire state, in response to a request from NACO and SACS to use BSS to assess the impact of the targeted intervention programs.
- Consistent condom usage among sex workers has increased significantly from 70% in 2004 to 90% in 2008.
For Further Information: http://www.avertsociety.org/
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