CONCEPT SUMMARY EIGHT (8):
The HIV/AIDS Essay and Cartoon competition Project

PROJECT SUMMARY AND EXPECTED OUTCOMES

Overall Goal

“To contribute towards enhancing participation of the orphaned and vulnerable children (OVCs) in raising awareness about HIV/AIDS, stigma and related issues.”

Specific Objectives and Expected Results

i. To encourage children’s/youth participation in Lilongwe in speaking out about HIV/AIDS.
ii. To enhance youth and children’s writing skills in schools in Lilongwe.
iii. To fully utilise (and publicise) the skills of the children/youth in writing and drawing as a strategy for promoting awareness on HIV/AIDS in Lilongwe communities
iv. To uncover – through children stories/essays – the negative cultural traditions that promote the spread of HIV/AIDS
v. To uncover – through children stories/essays – the negative cultural traditions that promotes violations of child rights and rights of other vulnerable groups.
vi. To propose practical solutions to the problems identified.
vii. To enable CRIDOC, and other institutions, understand HIV/AIDS from the children’s perspectives so as to enable them to effectively organise intervention strategies/activities to mitigate the practices.

Project Description

The project is in line with the Malawi National HIV/AIDS Policy which recognises children as being among groups suffering from discrimination which makes them vulnerable to HIV/AIDS. The policy thus emphasises that “an effective response to the epidemic requires that the rights to equality before the law and freedom from discrimination are respected, protected and fulfilled – in particular, in gender relations among women, men, girls and boys.” Many AIDS orphans are now dependent on elderly grandparents, but others have no one to turn to, so in both cases they are disempowered. One of the goals of the Policy is to strengthen the multi-sectoral and multi-disciplinary institutional framework for coordination and implementation of HIV/AIDS programmes in the country.

This proposal, therefore, responds to both the aims of the National Policy as well as the CRIDOC’s Strategic Plan 2005-2010 in initiating a project that aims at advocating messages of HIV/AIDS and its associated negative effects/issues like stigma, discrimination, rights of children living with virus, etc.

Besides the scourge of HIV/AIDS, special focus will be to assess to what extent have the rights of children been affected by HIV/AIDS from the cultural perspective. As has been a trend that many new democracies fail to address the social and economic rights of the most vulnerable groups, this project will also seriously attempt to look at the socio-economic dimension of HIV/AIDS among children.

The project will target children who are orphaned and others who feel are vulnerable in any way possible to the scourge of HIV/AIDS. They may be vulnerable either directly (i.e. have the virus that causes AIDS) or indirectly (i.e. they feel that their orphan or destitute status makes them vulnerable). They will be asked to speak about their own experiences and thoughts in relation to the various negative issues that affect them in relation to HIV/AIDS.

A total of 1500 books will be published and will be distributed for free in 40 schools within Lilongwe City (each school will receive 30 copies to be stored in their libraries). CRIDOC will retain 100 copies at its resource centre, whereas the rest (200 copies) will be distributed to the National Library Services.

NOTE:
CRIDOC will respond within 48 hours upon receiving your request/query only after fully including the following information in your request/querry:

(a) Your Name

(b) Your Organisation

(c) Your Contact Details (address, phone, e-mail, etc)

(d) Explain why you require more information

(e) What will you use information for?

(f) Explain why you require full proposal?

(g) What will you use the proposal for?

(h) Any more comments?

NB: CRIDOC reserves the right to provide more information/full proposal based largely on the answers to the questions stated above. Whether such information/proposal has been granted or not, either way we pledge to respond to your request/querry within 48 after accessing the e-mail.