HIVAN Community Symposium Report - January 2002
Tuesday, August 06, 2002 HIVAN Community Liaison Office.
HIVAN is essentially about facilitating multisectoral partnerships around HIV/AIDS in KwaZulu-Natal. In line with this mission, HIVAN serves as a mechanism for linking communities and community-based organisations with other organisations and individuals who can partner these communities in various ways (research, intervention, training, fund-raising, etc.) to effect meaningful responses to HIV/AIDS. HIVAN organises fora, workshops, seminars and symposia as a means for linking like-minded, and often isolated, community-based HIV/AIDS initiatives with one another.
I. Purpose of the Symposium
In order to obtain an overview of community needs and priorities in KwaZulu Natal, and to jumpstart the process of engagement in communities, HIVAN held its first Community Symposium on 28th ?– 29th January 2002.
The Community Symposium was aimed at:
· Informing major community stakeholders in the province about HIVAN?’s community engagement activities;
· Providing an opportunity for representatives from HIV/AIDS focused community organisations working at grassroots level in all the regions of KwaZulu Natal to network with one another;
· Providing HIVAN and communities with a snapshot of HIV/AIDS related activities in KwaZulu Natal, and through this process to be able to assess the commonalities and the differences by region;
· Developing a community-inspired agenda for research and intervention informed by community input and community-identified priorities. The report reflecting these findings will be integrated into the HIVAN research and intervention agenda to be finalised in mid 2002;
· Forming a HIVAN Community Advisory Panel that will meet a number of times annually to interact with HIVAN around its activities and to advise HIVAN on the direction and focus of its community engagement activities. This panel comprises one community elected representative from each community in which HIVAN has conducted research (currently three representatives); two members of the KZN CBO Network?’s Behaviour Change Programme (BCP) Executive; and is chaired by the KZN CBO Network Provincial Chairperson, Mr Victor Mkhize. The Chairperson of the Community Advisory Panel sits on the HIVAN Advisory Panel;
· Forming a BCP Task Team that will meet a number of times annually to plan and implement a BCP programme of training and intervention activities at sub-regional and grassroots level in KwaZulu Natal. HIVAN is an active partner with BCP in KwaZulu Natal and will be assisting both in conceptualisation of these BCP implementations plans and enhancing BCP training efforts at community level as HIVAN rolls out its community engagement process in the province.
[Download the full report on the right hand side of this page - in either Word or PDF format]
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