Scaling up Demand for HIV Prevention Services & Expanding Care & Support Programs through Churches in Zambia

Background: The Scaling up demand for HIV Prevention Services and expanding Care and Support Services through Churches in Zambia was a 3 years cooperative agreement partnership between the USAID under the new Partners Initiative and Tearfund, implemented from December 2008 to November 2011. The prime partner was Tearfund Zambia with four faith based sub recipient partners namely: Jesus Cares Ministries; Brethren in Christ Church (BICC); Evangelical Fellowship of Zambia (EFZ) and Scripture Union of Zambia (SUZ). The project was implemented in 17 district within six provinces of Zambia that included Central, Luapula, Northern, Southern, North-Western and Eastern Province. The overall goal was to contribute to the Zambian Government effort to reduce HIV infections and improve the quality of life of those infected/affected by HIV/AIDS in the 17 target districts in Zambian by 2011.

Achievement and Impact: The project surpassed its target where a total of 102,068 individuals against the target of 100,000 were reached with abstinence and being faithful messages in small group. With Prevention from Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) programme, a total of 16,353 pregnant women were counseled, tested for HIV and received results in PMTCT setting. This was a 106% achievement above the project target of reaching 15,500 pregnant women. In counselling and testing, 33,681 individuals were counseled, tested and those found to be HIV positive were referred for treatment. The project further provided OVC care and support services to 33,587 OVC and 6,528 People Living With HIV were served. The project built the capacity of 4 partner faith based organizations to implement HIV/AIDS programmes and 1,709 churches were mobilized to continue the HIV/AIDS programmes at district and community level.  Furthermore, the project trained a total of 23,691 community volunteers to engage in HIV/AIDS programmes and this include: 10,512 trained in HIV prevention, 211 in PMTCT, 27 in HIV Counseling and Testing, 11,371 in OVC care management and 1,370 in Home Based Care.