Men can volunteer too...
Many staff from around the world commented on last weeks article by Richard Hawkes about his recent trip to Zimbabwe. Among the partners he visited was FACT FAMILY AIDS CARING TRUST. We describe here how FACT is pioneering work with male volunteers, which is unusual in the Southern Africa culture...
The AIDS pandemic has caused devastation across Southern Africa, with enormous numbers of young adults struck down and ill in their homes. One major response from churches and NGOs has been Home Based Care, the use of volunteers to bring care and attention to HIV positive people in their homes. Although this strategy has been highly beneficial, one unintended consequence has been the rising workload for women and girls. Most volunteer programmes have relied on women to deliver the care, which has added yet another burden to their over-busy lives.
VSO and many partner NGOs have seen the need to increase the number of male volunteers and reduce the burden of care on women. In Southern Africa VSO is working both at a country level and at a regional, policy level, to promote good practice.
Richard Hawkes visited Zimbabwe last month and was subdued to spend time in a country on the edge of a humanitarian disaster. 'I visited some of the poorest communities I have ever been to... in one village we met a 68 year old grandmother bringing up her 11 orphaned grandchildren, all without enough food most days'. But in spite of the economic collapse some VSO partners remain very active.
'We spent time with VSO partner, the Family AIDS Caring Trust,' said Richard. 'After support from the National Volunteering team and from VSO Jitolee FACT were able to set up a volunteer programme. They have now recruited and trained more than 650 Zimbabwean volunteers who are doing home-based care for people with HIV and AIDS. On average each of them is supporting 10 families. They go into the homes, do basic health care, nutrition advice etc and pass on skills and knowledge to other family members. So that's more than 6,000 families directly benefiting from the support of the FACT volunteers.'
One of the successes of FACT is that they have broken the mould of depending only on women volunteers. Of the 500 Youth volunteers in FACT, 166 are young men who work on Peer Counselling, awareness raising and also household chores in the homes of the sick.
In their Home Based Care programme FACT have 110 male volunteers out of 300 in the community total, and of the doctors and nurses who support the programme 12 out of 50 are men. Across all their programmes FACT are averaging around one third men a higher percentage than most NGOs have managed. As FACT director Portipher Guta said, 'Male involvement is successful and lessens the workload of women who are burdened by other household chores. Involving males in home based care changed the mindset of many since volunteering was perceived to be womens responsibility. Some of the factors contributing to this change have been the support of influential leaders, like the headman, chiefs and kraal heads in the trainings'.
Building on the example of partners like FACT, VSO staff are lobbying at a regional level to embed these sort of changes in the policies of major regional institutions. The annual conference of VSO RAISA (Regional AIDS Initiative of Southern Africa) focused in 2003 on Men and HIV, and brought together good practice from volunteers, partners, and groups of progressive men such as PADARE from Zimbabwe, and the South African Mens Forum. From the experiences of our partners VSO carries out advocacy with key regional institutions and donors.
This year RAISA has been promoting male involvement in care in four of the RAISA countries. Following a presentation to the Southern Africa Development Conference on reducing the burden of care in April 08, VSO RAISA has conducted consultative meetings in 4 countries - Malawi, Namibia, Mozambique and South Africa - with technical support from the WHO regional team. In each of these countries, RAISA conducted workshops with participation of local partners, the National AIDS Committee, Ministry of Health, and International NGOs such as Help Age International and Save the Children. In December 2008 RAISA and the partners will reflect on the findings before finalising the exercise in Zambia and Zimbabwe by February 2009.
'The RAISA advocacy on reducing the burden of care for women is a good example of how VSO can achieve sustainable change', said Steve Lewis, Head of Policy and Advocacy at VSO. 'An NGO such as FACT shows that it is possible to improve policy and practice at a local level. Then VSO RAISA can share those examples around the partners at the annual conferences. And now we are working to make sure that good practice is adopted by WHO, and SADC, the most important intra-government level institutions in the region'.
Building on these experiences in the home based care field, it is clear that a greater involvement of men and especially young men is crucial in all fields of work on HIV and Aids. VSO is going to begin a new piece of work in 2009, this time on HIV prevention efforts. A draft Prevention Advocacy Strategy, now being discussed, aims to encourage more participation of men and young boys in prevention efforts. The goal is to build on the successes of some of our partners in the Home Based Care work so far. In the words of FACT director Portipher Guta 'Care for the sick is no longer only the responsibility of women in our area, but is fast becoming a shared responsibility between and among men and women.'