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PEPFAR and The Global Fund approaches to Civil Society TA

Ambassador Goosby, speaking at the April 2011 Civil Society Hearing of the United Nations in New York, referred to the civil society and community implementers being ‘more effective’ and ‘better placed’ for the delivery of services. As the Global AIDS Coordinator of the US Government PEPFAR he had taken on the programme that had run since 2005 called the New Partners Initiative. The New Partners Initiative (NPI) made its first awards in 2006 to 23 prime recipients. The second round (mid 2008) and third round of awards (early 2009) brought the number of prime recipients to 53 organisations. Each received three year awards with annual values of US$500,000 to US$1 million. Many of the prime organisations reflected the original announcement by President Bush on WAD December 1, 2005: “ This new initiative will establish a competitive grants process for new partners, including faith- and community-based organizations, with the desire and ability to help implement PEPFAR, but who have li
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#AIDS2011 Thirty years of HIV in Uganda

Hope Clinic Lukuli and more importantly the members of the community we serve have spent an enjoyable day with a reporter from Reuters looking at Uganda's experiences over the past 30 years. The United Nations General Assembly are holding a High Level Meeting in New York in the coming week. Reuters want to hear from the communities about how the reality of HIV has changed. Policy - Partnerships - People The success story for Uganda, and also for other countries but at a different pace, has been to develop the policy framework, form the partnerships, and most recently to think about the HIV and AIDS-related needs of the people. The policy framework and specifically the Government of Uganda's acknowledgement of the risk to the population of HIV led to openness, national awareness campaigns and the 'Zero grazing' guidance. That willingness in the late 80s and early 90s of the government to inform its populous was a key start. Consider the countries which only began t
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Our strategy for the clinic 2009-2013 with updates

Our strategy for 2009-2013 to continue to serve the needs of our community To ensure the affordable medical treatment from good and friendly staff for which Hope Clinic Lukuli is recognised and relied upon in the community can continue, our strategy includes: 1. Continue the strong relationship with the community, Makindye Division, Kampala City Council and the Ministry of Health and their funding partners; 2. Strengthen the internal management and reporting systems of the clinic beyond the already established medical case records and patient care; 3. Maintain financial self-sufficiency for the out-patients, maternity and admissions services and support integration of these general health services with the free-to-client services; 4. Develop new and expanded grantee and programme relationships with Government, companies, private donators and international granting bodies to expand the free to client services as part of Uganda’s national health priorities; 5. Improve reporting of our ac
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Social Media and new Websites

Hope Clinic Lukuli is participating in the online discussions regarding availability of ARVs in Uganda (Hope Clinic's patients are not missing out, due to our network of supporters) and the ways to improve PMTCT accesss for pregnant women. We TWEET! In the meantime, we are very grateful to TheValueWeb for their ideas and to Sita for the new Strawbags website. The graphic skills of TheValueWeb and London designer, DeathBeforeDishonour will be delivering the Hope Clinic experiences at the International AIDS Society 2010 conference in Vienna in July.
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Strawbags – so many benefits for makers, users and the environment

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List the things you know about plastic: • It is made from fossil fuels (oil) and so each new bag is from a finite resource • Governments encourage us to use fewer bags – some ban their importation • Shops help us change our habits by charging us for thin bags • Cheap, thin bags break and go in the bin • Things you put in the bin are burnt or buried – both are bad for the environment • Drop a bag on the ground and it blocks a drain or chokes an animal Remember what a responsible person should do? It is ‘Green’ and saves you money: Reduce the use of resources that are finite Re-use items, find a second or third job for things you own Recycle, efficiently, what can’t be re-used anymore Kinawataka Women’s Initiative is based in a village that has become a suburb of Kampala, in Uganda. As well as thin plastic bags blocking the drains - that are so necessary in fertile Uganda with two rainy seasons – the women found plastic drinking straws that had been used for locally made juices in a bag
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Strawbags - Money from old plastic

Helping People, Helping the Planet "At least I have my health” – a joke said for hard times in the US and Europe. In Uganda health is not so much a personal description of well-being but a day to day concern that requires nutrition, the time to visit the over-crowded and under-resourced government facility, or money to visit a non-government clinic. For women living in the Kinawataka village in Kampala, Benedicta Nabingi saw her retirement from over 20 years of public sector work as the start of her challenges. Benedicta and other retirees have looked at their households and watched the large houses being built around them, the city’s roads getting busier and new shopping centres built; covered with adverts for designer clothes, mobile phone companies and new types of soda drink. Around the village the green hills of Kampala are testimony to the rains that allow the countryside to feed a rapidly growing population – but in the urban areas the ‘shambas’ for growing food are being t
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Income generating activities - volunteer intern wanted

http://www.volunteerabroad.com/listingsp3.cfm/listing/69114 Description: Hope Clinic Lukuli and Kinawataka Women's Initiative have formed a partnership to expand the number of women and households who can prepare and weave waste plastic drinking straws into lengths of 'material'. This material is then used to make mats and shopping/ sports bags to replace disposable plastic bags. All sale proceeds from the products are paid to the weavers/ bag makers. The volunteer post is to 'make this happen'. Support the marketing, liase with customers, help the women organise into production and finishing teams and create links to buyers in Europe and North America Highlights: - Living in Kampala, a friendly city in East Africa - Helping women in households on low income to generate their own earnings for food and education - Reducing waste that pollutes water sources and block rain drains (that otherwise lead to floods) - Supporting a philanthropic health centre to
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Women and Hope Clinic Lukuli

Joyce Bbosa is an experienced midwife who described at her retirement how she has delivered the village with her own two hands. Joyce, then in her 50s, was working in a two room structure helping children with fevers – whether malaria or not – and helping scared young mothers living in Kampala away from their family support, at home in the village. Hope Clinic Lukuli grew from these two rooms by the work of a women-led committee of non-medics. Small actions by the people living in Lukuli village on the edge of Kampala brought child immunisation to the families; help with oral rehydration to manage the fevers; and access to HIV testing for the pregnant mothers and others to help reduce new infections. www.hcluganda.org Hope Clinic Lukuli has continued since 2000, and despite Joyce’s retirement in 2004, to become a new facility offering family planning and maternal health, admissions for deliveries, a laboratory and out-patients department. What makes it unusual is that the co
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USG Meeting in Preparation for HIV Implementers

On 2nd June the US Government delegates from countries implementing PEPFAR and related USG initiatives meet in Kampala. They are following the theme of Scaling Up Through Partnerships that will continue on the 3rd June with the HIV Implementers Conference. A Critical Barrier to Implementation has been the apparent reluctance for ‘larger’ organisations to engage with ‘smaller’ implementers. Just as general practice medical services are a network of small clinics, medium sized health centres and large hospitals, the provision of HIV services require mentoring and referral mechanisms. The barrier that Hope Clinic needed to, and with great struggle did, overcome was how to make the first contact and be heard by the best practice organisations. For the funders of these implementers, greater flexibility to share training, share materials or provide mentoring support would be a welcome lesson to learn when designing the next intervention. It is understandable that national or d
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