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15 Years Working With The Community
Since its establishment in 1995, Hiwot Ethiopia has been working with the community on SRH and HIV & AIDS issues among youth and children. Innovative approaches have been employed such as the ‘youth to youth’ approach, engaging boys and men to fight gender based violence and using a targeted approach to support better SRH among adolescent girls and reduce early marriage.
HIV/AIDS, SRH and GBV
A Targeted Approach to SRH
Research has shown that taking a targeted approach to young people’s SRH helps to improve outcomes and practices.
Hiwot Ethiopia is supporting good SRH among adolescent girls by using different methods depending on the age group and
marital status of the individual. For example, those who are not married are encouraged to stay in school and to delay marriage
until after completing their education; those who are married are supported to delay the first pregnancy, and
those who already have a child or children are helped to space subsequent pregnancies, as a means of achieving improved SRH.
Hiwot Ethiopia, in partnership with the David and Lucile Packard Foundation has been implementing
a three year ASRH program in Amhara Regional State. The organization first received grants from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation
in September 2008.
The Hiwot Ethiopia SRH project aims to empower adolescents and young people by improving their sexual and reproductive health situation with
particular emphasis of girls.
The project has been implementing in North Shewa Zone of Amhara Regional State, in Merhabate, Ensaro, and Moretna jeru Weredas.
The project beneficiaries include: 110,000 youngsters, 65,000 parents, relatives, community leaders, teachers, member of the church/religious
leaders; and 1,760 government officials.
The major lessons from the project:
Comprehensive and holistic approach: Girls’ education integrated with People, Health and Environment (PHE). Hiwot Ethiopia
integrates environmental concerns to adolescent girls’ programming in the highly degraded implementation area. Some of the components of this
approach include:
Reproductive Health peer education based on age, marital status and child bearing situation of girls:
The young girls from age 10-24 are categorized in age groups of 10—14, 15-19, and 20-24 by considering the unmarried, newly married groups with
no child and groups that are married and with more than one child as independent groups. Both in school and out of school girls are addressed.
The educational session for unmarried group focuses on prevention of early marriage and early child bearing; for those married and without children,
the focus is on awareness and provision of family planning options and services for delaying the first child bearing time while the married girls
with more than one child are addressed on child spacing. A similar independent peer group discussion among boys is also facilitated.
Prevention of HIV/AIDS and GBV through Men As partners
Hiwot Ethiopia in collaboration with Engender health, conducted Men As partners® (MAP) activities, in 2009/2010 in three out of school youth clubs, 10 community idirs (community based organizations) and in 6 secondary schools in Addis Abeba. These community based organizations (CBO) undertook several series of group peer discussions based on standardized MAP group education manuals. When the series of group
discussions came to an end in September 2010, it was confirmed that all the 200 target youth have completed the full 19 MAP sessions (topics). Meanwhile, out of the 1000 target idir members (adults), 900 attended the full sessions and the rest managed to complete 12 sessions.
Within six months, a total of 266 group discussions were conducted both at youth clubs and Idirs. The discussions were facilitated and led by 115 trained MAP peer educators. The target individuals intensively discussed male gender norms
for the prevention of HIV and gender based violence (GBV). The group discussions were conducted in a participatory manner with lively discussions among participants on MAP topics like learning about gender, act like a man, levels of HIV risk, alphabets of prevention, getting tested for HIV, from violence to respect, sexual consent...etc.
Child Development
Engaging Boys and Men
In the past, many programmes have focused on empowering women to gain gender equality. It is now understood that engaging boys and men, increasing their understanding of the issues and gaining their support for solutions is a very effective strategy for increasing the well-being of children and women. Male engagement is a cross cutting strategy for Hiwot Ethiopia and is integrated into all its programmes and activities.
YENIGAT WOG
Tune in to our radio program that addresses engaging with boys and men to prevent child focused sexual abuse and exploitation On Sheger FM 102.1 every Friday 8:40am-9:00am and Wednesday 1:40pm-2:00pm.
HELPLINE: 936
Our helpline provides free counseling services
for children and young people, who have been infected and affected and, information on SRH by HIV and AIDS; and information on wider SRH issues.
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Achievements