HIV counseling and testing
Youth Health Organisation (YOHO)

Partnership Period: Sept 2008 – February 2010 (18 months)

Youth Health Organisation (YOHO) is non-governmental organisation and it is mandated to facilitate health and HIV and AIDS activities spearheaded by the youth. The organisation uses the Triple E strategy, “Education, Entertainment and Empowerment” as its key entry point in youth mobilisation, sensitisation, education and empowerment. YOHO currently works with 7 community based youth groups that are affiliated to YOHO and YOHO is providing 90% support to the groups and ACHAP for this support is in four sites (Gaborone, Ghantsi, Hukuntsi and Letlhakane).

The identified project objectives to be supported are:

1. Youth mobilisation with emphasis on improving youth awareness and comprehensive knowledge of HIV and AIDS, and empowering them to access and utilise available health services.
2. Life skills developments aimed at empowering young people to cope with social and economic challenges associated with HIV and AIDS.
3. Capacity building intended to ensure efficiency and effectiveness in service delivery by YOHO and its affiliate youth organisations.

Summary of Achievements

Through this support YOHO has undertaken a Community Mapping exercise which was to identify services available and accessible to youth as key HIV drivers in the project sites. Data obtained from this exercise will form a baseline and inform intervention activities. Key findings in the sites included high illiteracy rates, alcohol abuse and multiple sexual partners which contribute to the high risk of HIV infection amongst youth.

Botswana Network of AIDS Services Organisation (BONASO)

Partnership Period: Sept 2008 – February 2010 (18 months)

The mandate of BONASO is to facilitate coordination and management of Civil Society responses on HIV/AIDS in Botswana. BONASO is a network of 160 affiliate’s actively implementing HIV/AIDS interventions. BONASO membership is diverse, geographically representative and composed of Community Based Organisations, Faith Based Organisations, Support Groups of People Living with HIV/AIDS and some private sector companies.

BONASO’s strategic objectives are:

• To strengthen the coordination and management of Civil society response to HIV and AIDS
• To develop the institutional capacity of 75% of member organisations in relevant HIV and AIDS projects and programme development, management and service delivery by 2012
• To facilitate efficient access and utilisation of strategic HIV and AIDS information by 80% of all member organisations by 2012
• To increase financial resources by 100% for BONASO programme implementation, including grants to CSO by 2012
• To strengthen the capacity of 75% of member organisations in monitoring and evaluation, and reporting of HIV and AIDS activities by 2012

For ACHAP’s support to BONASO, the project objectives are:

• To strengthen the capacity of four (4) regional NGO coalitions to facilitate the scaling up of civil society HIV prevention activities at district and community by December 2009
• To strengthen the capacity of BONASO for effective and efficient coordination and scaling up of Civil Society promising best practices in HIV prevention interventions by 2009

Key activities include:

• Conducting District CBO Needs Assessment and community mapping to facilitate coordinated support for CBOs to implement HIV prevention interventions
• Organize quarterly reflection /networking workshops for each District NGO Coalition
• Recruit project support team