Type: Tools, leaflets and posters

The authors of these stories are part of our 2021 Life Force. This is their first experience of writing their stories. The visuals and comic strips were also developed by one of the Life Force. The Life Force guide joint advocacy by GNP+, ICW, and Y+ Global – the global networks of people living with HIV – through our BeyondLIVING partnership.

This book brings together a collection of six stories and visuals by people living with HIV from around the world. The stories are real. As the global networks of people living with HIV, we know that these stories are not unique. From self-stigma and rejection by loved ones to being excluded from schools and workplaces, these stories capture some of the many ways people living with HIV experience stigma. 

However, these stories also highlight the resilience of people living with HIV and the support and solidarity that they have found. These are stories of overcoming rejection and discrimination. They are stories of choosing to live and choosing to love. They are stories of giving back to the community and contributing to society. 

The GNP+ Community-Led Accountability, Influence and Monitoring programme (CLAIM) enables people living with HIV to fully claim their space in Global Fund processes and claim their role in ensuring that Global Fund grants are developed, implemented and monitored in ways that are effective and inclusive.

Through CLAIM, we support Community Forums to facilitate communication and coordination among people living with HIV. The main purpose of the Community Forum is to develop a shared advocacy agenda with clear priorities and recommendations that can be used to influence HIV and health-related processes, in particular those connected to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria.

This guide was developed by GNP+ to help networks to organise effective Community Forums for people living with HIV, in all their diversity.

Clear, accurate information about HIV treatment is essential for parents and caregivers of infants and children.

We are delighted to share these new materials, designed for peer educators, community health workers, treatment advocates, or anyone interacting regularly with parents and caregivers living with or concerned about HIV. The posters and leaflets can serve as a guide for community awareness-raising or self-help group discussions or as a handy source of information for individual counseling sessions. 

The materials cover the following themes: Rights, Testing, Breastfeeding, Treatment, Taking HIV Medicine, Talking About HIV, Stigma, and COVID-19. The key messages were developed jointly with PLHIV networks in Malawi and Senegal – MANET+ and RNP+ – and tested with communities in both countries. We are grateful for funding and technical assistance from UNICEF and Unitaid. 

The materials are available in English and French – you can access them here:

English Poster & Leaflet

French Poster & Leaflet

NEW!! Universal Health Coverage Day toolkit – 10 things you can do to get involved and make a difference this UHC Day 2021.

Universal health coverage (UHC) means all people, everywhere, can get the quality health services they need without financial hardship.

Every 12th December, advocates worldwide mobilise on UHC Day to call for strong, equitable health systems that leave no one behind.

Our toolkit is available in French and English and includes 10 actions you can do around UHC Day. You don’t need to do all ten. Have a look, be inspired, and do the ones that would be most impactful in your context.

About the Toolkit

The Health for All Advocacy Toolkit provides national-level civil society organizations (CSOs) and health networks with the necessary resources to kick-start advocacy initiatives on universal health coverage (UHC). It offers advocates a central reference point—a ‘one-stop shop’ for key information and tools to advocate UHC, hold policy-makers accountable for their commitments, and build a broad social movement within civil society to support health for all.

The Toolkit is designed to be used by civil society advocates who are interested in learning more about what universal health coverage means; what commitments have been made to UHC at the global, regional, and country levels; and how they can incorporate UHC principles into their advocacy. The resources may also be useful for CSOs advocating on specific health issues or on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) beyond health, as the Toolkit provides information on how connecting to UHC advocacy can strengthen those efforts.

This Toolkit responds to the specific needs of civil society. In the lead up to the United Nations High-Level Meeting (HLM) on UHC in 2019, civil society and community representatives in countries around the world, convened by the Civil Society Engagement Mechanism for UHC2030 (CSEM), asked for more knowledge and information about UHC as well as about global level advocacy initiatives and platforms. The CSEM surveyed its members and other global health civil society networks to understand the specific kinds of information and resources that would be most useful in supporting their work on UHC. The survey received over 100 responses from 40 countries. Over 75% of respondents asked for practical tools and guidance for UHC advocacy.

The Health for All Toolkit was developed to respond to these needs and to provide one-stop access to existing resources and toolkits for UHC. The Toolkit was developed by the CSEM, with support from UHC2030, Equal International, and a reference group.

The Toolkit has three sections:

• Part 1: Introduction to Universal Health Coverage—provides an introduction to UHC, what it is, why health for all is vital, and how it can contribute to health as well as other SDGs. This section is particularly informative for those new to UHC as it outlines the key concepts and actors, and gives a timeline and milestones to date. It describes the key players at global and regional levels to enable advocates to ground their advocacy work in the broader UHC ecosystem. It is designed to equip users with technical knowledge around the essential UHC building blocks necessary for advocating UHC with various stakeholders.
• Part 2: Why civil society needs to engage in Universal Health Coverage—explores the critical role of civil society and communities in all stages of UHC design and implementation, and conveys civil society’s key advocacy calls to action. It includes case studies and vignettes that demonstrate the impact civil society has had and continues to have in decision-making for UHC, especially in ensuring health equity and holding leaders accountable.
• Part 3: How to participate—provides step-by-step guidance on advocating for UHC at the national level. This section walks the user through essential processes for creating an advocacy action plan, including defining the key challenges and bottlenecks and establishing where their country is on the road to UHC. This will help frame the activities and goals of the specific advocacy plan. The toolkit explains the process of mapping both advocacy targets and the stakeholders to collaborate with. Users will also learn how to develop key advocacy messages and incorporate them into ongoing advocacy work. This section provides practical tools and will help CSOs determine their budgets and measure their progress.

Acknowledgments

Rebekah Webb wrote this toolkit with contributions from Aishling Thurow, Amy Boldosser-Boesch, Carthi Mannikarottu, Eliana Monteforte, Oanh Khuất Thị Hải, and Masaki Inaba.

A special thanks to the UHC2030 Core Team at WHO and Equal International for their contributions to the development of this toolkit. We are grateful to the reference group for lending their expertise in support of this Toolkit: Evalin Karijo, Dumiso Gatsha, Georgina Caswell, Javier Hourcade Bellocq, Katie Husselby, Kirsten Zindel, Kurt Frieder, and Marielle Hart. We thank Results International and White Ribbon Alliance Kenya for sharing examples and learnings from successful advocacy campaigns.

Design: Kim Martin

Editorial review: Jane Coombes

The 2021 high-level meeting will be the springboard for a decade of action to reduce inequalities and root out the social determinants that fuel the HIV epidemic.

Source: UNAIDS

Young, Wild, & Free is a Y+ Global programme bringing together networks of young people living with HIV to share best practices of engagement, support, and resilience of young key populations. Young, Wild, & Free highlighted three innovative youth networks doing amazing work in the HIV response – Teenergizer (Ukraine), Inti Muda (Indonesia), and Y+ Global – who then have been working with 8 grassroots networks (Positive Young Women Voices (Kenya), Y+ Kenya (Kenya), Positive Women’s network (South Africa), Y+ South Africa, Inti Muda (Indonesia), Gtown (Vietnam), Lighthouse (Vietnam), Teenergizer (Ukraine)) to implement one of their best practices. This guidebook was created so you too could learn their tricks and implement your own in your country!

NEW!! Universal Health Coverage Day toolkit – 10 things you can do to get involved and make a difference this UHC Day 2020.

Universal health coverage (UHC) means all people, everywhere, can get the quality health services they need without financial hardship.

Every 12th December, advocates worldwide mobilise on UHC Day to call for strong, equitable health systems that leave no one behind.
The theme of this year’s UHC Day is ‘#Protect Everyone’.

Our toolkit is available in French and English and includes 10 actions you can do around UHC Day. You don’t need to do all ten. Have a look, be
inspired and do the ones that would be most impactful in your context.

This factsheet is designed to give advocates the information they need to promote early infant diagnosis (EID) within their communities and to encourage people to take their babies for HIV testing.

A leaflet answering parents and caregivers questions about HIV testing for babies.

This job aid is for anyone who regularly talks to, meets with and supports communities affected by HIV. It gives you the information you need to talk to parents and caregivers to encourage infant HIV testing.

A briefing paper to share with policy makers outlining the importance of early infant diagnosis and making the case for point-of-care testing.

A poster to encourage parents and caregivers to take their baby for an HIV test.

A strategic framework for networks of people living with HIV and other civil society organisations to help you develop an action plan to work in support of infant HIV testing.

A toolkit to:
● Provide a set of practical tools that support community advocates to take concrete steps to turn the data and key findings of PLHIV Stigma Index Reports into practical advocacy actions
● Help networks of people living with HIV to identify and take forward advocacy actions based on the key findings and recommendations from PLHIV Stigma Index
Reports
● Support Stigma Index teams who are at the data analysis stage of the project or who are in the process of developing reports
● Build the capacity of advocates to use data on stigma to make a case for change

A series of materials that aims to improve the understanding of Positive Health, Dignity and Prevention. These booklets were written to support organisations to promote the meaningful engagement of people living with HIV in decisions that affect our lives.

 

 

 

 

Positive Health, Dignity and Prevention: What Does it Mean for Networks of People Living with HIV?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Positive Health, Dignity and Prevention: What Does It Mean for Me? 

 

A treatment literacy guide for pregnant women and mothers living with HIV

Women living with HIV from eight countries have shared their expertise to shape the content and design of the guide and it was formulated in direct response to a call from communities for up-to-date, evidence-based resources.

Positive Health, Dignity and Prevention for Women and their Babies: A treatment literacy guide for pregnant women and mothers living with HIV is intended for use by networks of women living with HIV, women’s groups, peer educators and others wishing to provide information and guidance to support women living with HIV through the decisions they will need to make before, during and after their pregnancy.

The guide has 12 modules covering issues ranging from human rights to treatment adherence and nutrition. It is made up of three separate tools:

• facilitator’s manual
• illustrated flipchart
• accessible poster

The facilitator’s manual and flipchart are intended to be used together by leaders of support groups, peer educators or lay counselors to facilitate small groups or community sessions with women living with HIV. The poster can be displayed anywhere where it will be seen by women living with HIV and their families, such as: clinic rooms, church halls, waiting rooms and community education spaces.

This guide was developed by members of the Community Engagement Working Group (CEWG) of the Inter-Agency Task Team (IATT) for Prevention and Treatment of HIV Infection in Pregnant Women, Mother and Children, a group committed to strengthening global, regional and national partnerships and programs that address the survival of pregnant women, mothers and children living with HIV.

In 2014, WHO produced the first ever Consolidated guidelines on HIV prevention, diagnosis, treatment and care for key populations. The Guidelines focus on five key populations: men who have sex with men; people who inject drugs; people in prisons and other closed settings; sex workers; and transgender people.

They present an opportunity for civil society, including networks of key populations and people living with HIV, to work with their governments to meaningfully involve key populations in national policymaking and begin investing in their specific needs. The Guidelines also offer an opening for dialogue and action on harmful laws, policies and societal norms that result in the denial and violation of human rights for key populations.

To support community organisation with the implementation of and advocacy for the Guidelines we created a new module for Key Populations to our Community Guide.

This set of modules is designed to be used by communities to support the use of the new resource, Driving the HIV response: A community guide to the WHO 2013 Consolidated Guidelines on the Use of Antiretroviral Drugs for Treating and Preventing HIV Infection.

The downloadable modules cover different topics, and include:

• An introduction to the Community Guide
• Module A: HIV diagnosis
• Module B: Using ARVs to prevent HIV
• Module C: ART for adults
• Module D: ART for pregnant women
• Module E: ART for children
• Module F: Programmes
• Module G: Policies
• Module H: Adolescents
• Module I: Key Populations
• Resources

The Global Network of People Living with HIV (GNP+), the International HIV/AIDS Alliance and STOP AIDS NOW! developed the Community Guide in response to the World Health Organization (WHO) 2013 Consolidated guidelines on the use of antiretroviral drugs for treating and preventing HIV. It aims to assist community leaders and civil society organisations to:

• better understand the new WHO recommendations and guide country-level discussions on priorities (within civil society and between civil society and government)
• ensure the meaningful participation of communities most affected by HIV in national decision-making and planning
• advocate for any changes or further research necessary to adapt recommendations to suit their country context
• mobilise and prepare communities for the implementation of new recommendations.