AYA PARTNERS AND PROJECTS

To accomplish its mission, AYA works with a range of agencies, charities and community-based organizations. The following represent several of the larger projects in which AYA Uganda is engaged.

Busoga Diocese, Anglican Church of Uganda
The Diocese will focus on out-of-school youth in the Busoga region by grafting youth-friendly services onto their existing adult reproductive health services offered at 40 clinics. In addition, it will establish 80 outreach sites and 220 social marketing outlets in the rural communities located in the three region's districts. It will also conduct youth-friendly assessments and continuous quality improvement activities to improve, monitor, measure and maintain the quality of youth services.

Kampala City Council
Kampala City Council, the major public sector health provider for the low-income population in Kampala, will help their existing structures provide ASRH services to more than 450,000 in- and out-of-school youth. The Council will train peer providers and clinicians from its facilities and school clinics to offer high-quality youth-friendly services. It will also establish 25 new outreach sites, and social marketing agents will be trained to provide condoms and STI kits to reach out-of-school youth at their workplaces.

Makerere University Medical School, Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology (MULAGO)
MULAGO will increase ASRH training capacity by integrating ASRH curricula into pre- and in-service training programs for health care practitioners at the six Ugandan teaching hospitals. In addition, they will provide practitioners with "hands-on" training experience in youth services in 48 rural and municipal facilities throughout the country, in communities surrounding teaching hospitals, and in youth-friendly training practicum sites. As the national referral and teaching hospital, MULAGO has relationships to work on youth-friendly services with the other five Ugandan teaching hospitals, the municipal health units of Kampala, and community organizations providing reproductive health services.

Parent's Concern for Young People
This organization works in the districts of Kaborole, Iamwenge, and Kvenjojo to help parents and teachers communicate better with adolescents to improve ASRH outcomes and well-being among 10- to 19-year-olds. Better communication between adults and youth leads to a more supportive environment in schools, families, and communities, which in turn helps youth practice healthier ASRH behaviors. Parent's Concern will employ the following strategies: advocacy, parent-child community outreach, parent-teacher association training activities, and participatory drama and theater skills for parents. Also, Parent's Concern will collaborate with Straight Talk to develop and air radio talk shows involving parents, teachers, and adolescents.

The School Adolescent Reproductive Health Project (SAREH)
This consortium includes the District Directorates of Health Services, the District Directorates of Education, the National Curriculum Development Center, Straight Talk and the Ndere Troupe, and will focus on in-school youth (10-19 years old). SAREH behavior change and communication activities will increase knowledge, skills, and positive attitudes to enable youth to make better ASRH choices, such as delaying their first sex or practicing safer sex. The consortium, with active participation from youth, will develop messages and materials for a weekly school radio program about ASRH; a radio drama series on ASRH linked to festivals, posters, and leaflet; and various radio and television spots. SAREH's entertainment-education activities will include training school teachers in each district to package ASRH messages into school drama, music, and monthly debate activities. Two life-planning skills facilitators will be trained per district, and school club leaders will be trained in life-planning skills methods. These facilitators will introduce teachers to life-planning skills concepts and materials. These activities will, as much as possible, be institutionalized in the school system for sustainability.

South Ruwenzori Diocese, Anglican Church of Uganda
South Ruwenzori Diocese is a prominent NGO in Kasese district, where it provides over 40% of district health care. It is scaling up to serve at least 34% of the estimated 200,000 youth in this intervention area by grafting quality youth-friendly ASRH services onto existing reproductive health and youth development services. The Diocese's youth-friendly services will include age-appropriate care to 10- to 14-year-olds during special hours. In addition, the Diocese will conduct outreach programs with an emphasis on reaching young people in displaced-person camps, fishing villages, vocational schools, and in the local transportation industry.

Uganda Youth Development Link (UYDEL)
Uganda Youth Development Link will increase access to HIV voluntary counseling and testing services, STI treatment, family planning services, and other ASRH counseling and guidance services for over 225,000 vulnerable street children and young commercial sex workers. UYDEL will train and deploy 60 peer providers and create five drop-in centers providing youth-friendly services in three slum areas. Effective outreach and strong referral links to youth-friendly service providers will be central features of their work. UYDEL will build on its existing relationships with the AIDS Information Center to provide voluntary counseling and testing services at outreach sites and with brothel owners, child support groups, health professionals and the Street Children Health NGO networks to reach out to youth.

Youth Out-of-School Action for Social Change (YOSAC)
A consortium of partners — Family Planning Association of Uganda, Uganda Red Cross Society, Ndere Troupe, and the District Directorates of Health Services — will promote safer sex practices among out-of-school youth by increasing their ASRH knowledge, skills, and positive attitudes. YOSAC will emphasize youth interaction and participation as a means of promoting self-reflection ,dialogue, critical thinking, and decision-making. Their strategies include using youth group drama, music, and sports events to address HIV and AIDS and unwanted pregnancies at district and sub-county levels. Content from life-planning skills education will be integrated into the drama and music functions. The Consortium will carry out advocacy work in the districts, and will promote youth-friendly services in all its activities.

Collaboration with other stakeholders
AYA will expand the reach of existing social marketing programs managed in Uganda by Marie Stopes and Commercial Marketing Strategies/PSI by coordinating with each to forge distribution systems specifically for young people. The social marketing approach has proven to be especially effective in reaching young males. Community workers, peer providers, and young commercial vendors will be trained to become social marketing agents to increase urban and rural adolescents' access to condoms, pills, and STI treatment kits. One of the ways that AYA will scale up activities is to build partnership with the Uganda Community Based Health Care Association and its affiliate organizations — the Uganda Taxi Operators and Drivers Association, the Uganda Hawkers Association, and the Village Health Workers' Association.

Recognizing that HIV voluntary counseling and testing services do not necessarily focus on young people, the Ministry of Health has agreed that AYA, as the largest program for young people in the country, provides an opportunity to extend the services to youth. In addition to training a total of 160 voluntary counseling and testing providers, AYA plans to use peer providers, community workers, and youth-friendly clinics to refer youth to HIV voluntary counseling and testing services at selected community outreach sites.