ACTIVITIES
HIV/AIDS
Stigma and discrimination in the HIV epidemic poses a significant challenge to a country’s development progress, as it perpetuates a cycle of poverty and inequality. A significant proportion of the population remains underserved by existing programmes. Indonesian experts in the field of public health, planning and policy need to be mobilized to assist in the national response to HIV.
The UNV programme advocates the benefits of civic engagement and integrates volunteerism into development programmes. UNV mobilizes thousands of volunteers every year in pursuit of distinctive contributions to development effectiveness. These contributions take the form of increased access to opportunities, better service delivery and increased community mobilization. The UNV programme collaborates closely with its government and UN partners by recruiting professionals who are placed within local governments, AIDS commissions, civil society organizations and communities to assist in organizational development.
Currently, national UNV volunteers work with civil society organizations and communities in the Papua region in areas of basic HIV-services planning, delivery and monitoring. UNV is also deeply committed to HIV prevention and support among youth groups.
The new joint research programme, involving UNV, UNDP and the International Labour Organization (ILO), aims to uncover the consequences of HIV/AIDS on ordinary Indonesians and their families. Four Indonesian national UNV volunteer coordinators will be based in four provinces, aided by UNV volunteer field researchers who will survey households affected by HIV. To help build trust, the latter volunteers will themselves be people living with HIV. Other researchers will be recruited from the Indonesian National Bureau of Statistics to talk to non-HIV affected households.
The study will look into unemployment and loss of income in HIV-affected households, the implications for women and children in particular, plus the effects of social attitudes and stigmas. It will also examine how volunteerism can make a difference to people living with HIV. The UNV volunteers' work will ultimately lead to a report set for launch in Bali during September 2009 at the ninth International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific.
In addition to the research programme, 16 national UNV volunteers were recruited to work across the country to strengthen the Ministry of Health’s capacity to manage the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. (GFATM) is a multi-billion dollar fund directed at aggressively tackling these three diseases, which kill over 6 million people every year.
Induction training for the first 16 UNV volunteer finance associates was completed in early July. Another 10 national UNV volunteers will be recruited in 2008, raising the total involved in the HIV/AIDS capacity development support programme to 26. They will be based in every province of Indonesia, working to build the capacity of local institutions and partners
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