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In every country, every project, and every site where we work, we work with and through communities. Why? Because for us, communities are an essential part of the health system.
Community organizations and individual community members deliver health services. We’ve experienced the power of a peer approach in Angola, where sex workers provide HIV testing, and in Uganda, where truck drivers provide education.
Communities create demand for services and support clients as they undergo HIV testing, consider prevention options, process an HIV diagnosis, and adhere to lifelong treatment. In Angola, men who have sex with men deployed an innovative strategy by using Facebook to encourage peers to come for services, while mentor mothers, youth clubs, and support groups have been central to success in our programs in Ethiopia, Malawi, and Nigeria.
We could not do the work we do without communities. They guide, reinforce, and monitor our efforts to deliver an effective AIDS response. They help hold health systems accountable and are the key to sustainability, as they will be there, supporting each other, long after others have gone.
This World AIDS Day, we commit to always engaging and listening to the communities we work with and advocating for their continued central role in the AIDS response.
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