HIVAN and WorldVision SA
WorldVision is an international Christian development aid organisation dedicated to the upliftment of poorly resourced communities through practical, needs-based empowerment initiatives. WorldVision SA runs a Child Survival Project as part of its Okahlamba Area Dvelopment Programme (OADP) in the uThukela district of KwaZulu-Natal, where, working together with local partners, a particularly active focus on home-based care and HIV/AIDS programmes for youth and children is sustained.
Late in 2001, a HIVAN Community Engagement contingent participated in a day-long meeting facilitated by WorldVision SA with a variety of stakeholders from the district, including community leaders, representatives of the provincial Department of Health, the local councillor, the manager of the Integrated Development Planning process for the area and several delegates from local NGO projects. The meeting was called to share information and experiences, and culminated in a series of field visits to HIV-affected homes and various other HIV/AIDS-related initiative. Local delegates clarified their project requirements for assistance in terms of evaluation design and social science research integration.
Since WorldVision SA and their local partners had already conducted exhaustive work on community needs and priorities in relation to HIV/AIDS, and had facilitated the development of a grassroots health committee structure, HIVAN was asked to play a collaborative role by providing social science expertise and by linking the local initiatives with appropriate partners outside of the area. Given that WorldVision's work with other stakeholders in the area has consolidated the use of local assets and mobilisation of social capital in the fight against HIV/AIDS, HIVAN's contribution to the partnership consists in complementing and reinforcing the initiatives already in place.
For example, one of HIVAN's Community Research Co-ordinators, Moses Ndlovu, who has particular expertise in the area of micro-enterprise development, was assigned to assist in the evaluation of a project called HIV-MED, focusing on the reduction of the socio-economic impact of the epidemic in the district through micro-enterprise intiatives.
In January 2002, HIVAN's Community Engagement team spent a week in the district and, in association with key WorldVision staff, held a number of informative meetings and interviews with local organisations and project leaders. HIVAN also co-hosted (with WorldVision SA's Okahlamba Area Home-based Care project) a day-long workshop in Bergville for HBC volunteers, at which delegates focused on their strengths, concerns and priorities in the field of home-based care.
HIVAN's role in its collaboration with WorldVision will continue to involve assistance in facilitating such initiatives, while serving as a mechanism for linking communities and CBOs with other organisations and individuals who can partner these communities in various ways, whether through research, intervention, training or fundraising, so as to effect meaningful responses to HIV/AIDS.
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