Overall Project
The project’s thrust is to ensure safe graduation of first year tertiary students by increasing preventive behaviour development through increase in capacity of risk behaviour reduction and vulnerability related to HIV and STIs.The project seeks to increase awareness, kwowledge and skills level in HIV and reproductive health, and safer sex between the students and theis patners through a multifaceted and age sensitive approach.
The project also seeks to reduce HIV and STIs transmission and prevelance rates and to encourage positive living amongst students who are already infected and affected by the HIV pandemic. The project will also seek to reduce stigmatization in tertiary institutions by fostering openess.
Background
Students in Zimbabwe are amongst indviduals who have no any source of income and tey are amongst the poorest citizens.Students who enrol at tertiary institutions usually come from poor rural and urban families.These students are required to pay school fees ranging from $400-$1000 per semester,but given the fact that their parents or guardians are civil servants who get a mere $150 per month education have been reserved for the elite students with the rest being denied entry into lectures by the campus security guards unless they would have settled their accounts.
Tertiary institutions have been politically polarised with the government accusing the students of persuing an anti government agenda this subsequently resulted in the government withdrawing loan scheme that used to help students to settle their school fees and cution them finincially.The government through various college adminstrations have closed the halls of residents of students at the bigger state universities notably the University of Zimbabwe,these have left thousands of students stranded as these students would have come from rural areas.Students are forced to rent in backyards where they put up at least 6 people per room.Other students are forced to commute for about 120km every day to and from college this despite the fact that the busfare is hard to come by. . It ia at this critical stage of career development that students are left to fend for themselves since they will be assumed to be adults. What this does is that, instead of breaking the cycle of poverty, poverty is being perpetuated as these children fail to afford tertiary education or for those who look for risky alternatives of income to finance their college or university life, the pandemic will take its toll at some premature point of their lives.
Students who enroll for first year are usually 18-19 years of age,this is the late adolesence stage as well as the introductory phase to adulthood,what this means is that this group is inexperianced when it comes to handling sexual issues.Older students usually during the first weeks of college life coarce the inexperianced students to have sexual relationships with them in what is named as the gold rush.The same happens to older people who are finincially stable,they approach these innocent souls to solicity for similar gains.
Most tertiary institutions are failing to offer a provision for entertainment to the students, which have subsequently negetively, impacted the social life of the students especially female students.
Justification
Tertiary students are amongst the most vulnerable groups affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Zimbabwe,this is against the fact that this vital group does not have any source of income hence making them vulnerable to sexual manipulation by indviduals of a better finiancial muscle.Despite being clearly vulnerable, tertiary institutions had half hearted cosmetic advocacy prevention programmes whose real material assistance was the distribution of condoms and pamphlets with prevention literature. When you look at the complexity of factors that encourage transmission of the virus and the needed diverse and multi-faceted intervention methods that are required to deal with the HIV/AIDS pandemic which range from political to socio-economic, mere condom distribution was at best desperately inadequate.
This vital group needs special treatment as it is the bedrock of future and sustainable socio-economic but this is threatened as some of the students usually succumb to HIV/AIDS shortly after graduating as also supported by the life expectancy of below 35 years. The loss of these students a few years down the road after they have graduated will undermine labour forces, exports, business productivity, investments, capacity building and ultimately the national economy.
Another dimension to this is the fact that young graduates are leaving the country in their thousands in search of greener pastures as the Zimbabwean educational system despite recent problems is still highly regarded in neighbouring countries and those further afield. If these young people are not protected from transmission they can easily become agents of transmission in host countries be it with in Africa or beyond.
Tertiary students in Zimbabwe do not seem to conform to the face value of the stereotyped groups which usually have a high HIV prevalence rate. These groups tend to come from marginalized communities were poverty is rampant, illiteracy wide spread, and women disempowered and disfranchised. People from these communities tend to use desperate strategies to increase their incomes which are conducive to the spread of HIV/AIDS for example poverty driven commercial sex work.
Universities and colleges are generally closed communities which outsiders perceive as institutions of higher learning whose core business and main activity is to equip young people with the knowledge and skills to become doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers etc. The assumption is that these young people are intelligent citizens who were responsible and disciplined enough to achieve the required grades to enter university. They must be responsible, enlightened, ambitious, and obviously know what they are doing and where they are going. They know better than to indulge in behaviour that would make them contract the HIV virus and jeopardise a future that they have worked so hard to achieve.
This maybe so, but the Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI) statistics coming out of tertiary clinics paint a different picture. Outsiders fail to realise that these institutions are communities that are fully functional with human beings who have a full social life not just young people simply reading books and attending lecturers.
The high risk behaviour that some students are now being forced to indulge in is not something that they are proud of. These survival methods and strategies are normally closely guarded secrets among friends or even at individual level. This behaviour is generally hidden to most people including classmates and parents. But hiding one’s social life does not eliminate risk.
Students only spend an average of two to four years at tertiary institutions. So though students are being infected at tertiary institutions, they are not falling over and dying right there for everyone to see the problem. The full impact of the problem comes to full circle much later when they are in industry and at the work place, when they are now married with children. That’s when you will find them ill and dying yet the problem would have started back at universities and colleges. As they die, new orphans are created, dependents are impoverished and the entire nation suffers from the loss of skill, loss of tax base, and increased pressure on the social welfare system. Statistics supports this, as about 39% of all deaths recorded in Harare (capital city) in 2006 due to illnesses which were mostly HIV related occurred in the 25 to 44 year age group. This is the most productive group.
The truth of the matter is that tertiary students in Zimbabwe have been exposed to a socio economic environment which is highly conducive to the transmission of the HIV virus.
This is not about morality or personal responsibility neither is this about the level of education of individuals. This is about poverty and survival. The need to live through university or college, to acquire skills that will enable students to escape the poverty stricken backgrounds they come from. Sometimes the price is too high to pay, but it has to be paid, for sadly, sometimes the end justifies the means.
It is againist this background that SAAF intends to have a nationwide campaign at all tertiary institutions to posetively step in to promote sexual and reproductive health through the promotion of responsible citizenship.
Project objectives
Increase awareness, kwoledge and skills level in HIV/AIDS and reproductive health.
Increasing student’s capacity to reduce risk behaviour and vulnerability related to HIV/AIDS and STIs.
Increase the capacity of students to make good choices and informed decisions .
Reduce exposure and vulnerability to HIV and STIs amongst the students community.
Reduce stigmatization and to promote gender equality in tertiary institutions.
To promote tolerance and openess when dealing with reproductive health issues.
To promote healthy and sustainable livelihoods.
To lobby for the rejuvination health service delivery at campus clinics.
Project Goals
To reduce incidences of HIV and STIs in tertiary institutions.
To reduce HIV/AIDS prevalance rates in tertiary institutions.
Activities
SAAF is going to employ a multi faceted approach in implementing the project, that includes public meeting, workshops, provision of information centers, focus group dissicussions and the provision of student friendly corners .Advocacy material such as t-shirts, pamphlets and educational material will be distributed during these activities.
A total of 20 public meetings will be held at various state university and polytechnic colleges in Zimbabwe.Students from other colleges will be invited to join proceedings at other campuses that will be geographically near.A total of 10 workshops attracting 40 participants per workshop at provincial level.The workshop will attract participants from the tertiary institutions in that province so as to promote sharing of ideas and experiances with a view of adressing the problem collectively.50 focus group discussion will be held around the country and these shall be used as a build up and mobilisation ground towards the public meetings and workshops.During the public meetings,workshops and focus group discussions reproductive health activists,professional counsellors and intellectuals will be invited to present on different aspects of students’ sexuality.
SAAF is going to work closely with the various students’ social welfare departments at tertiary institutions and the Zimbabwe Medical Students Association (ZMSA) to rejuvinate the already existing but not functional students friendly corners were students can be able to get peer help and advice as well as litreature on the HIV/AIDS pandemic, these shall be away from the clinic and a one to one key informant interviews will be conducted in a friendly and conducive environment.
Expected Outcome and indicators
An informed student community that is capacitated to reduce risk sexual behaviour.A tolerant student community that is stigma free and encourages openess and posetive living amongst the infected and affected students.A reduction in both the transmission and prevelance rate of HIV and STIs as shown by the records at the clinics at the tertiary institutions.
Result Success indicators How we will measure Timeline
Increased awareness, kwoledge and skills level in HIV/AIDS and reproductive health. Reduction in risk behaviour and vulnerability related to HIV/AIDS. Analyse the incidance of HIV and STIs as reported by the clinic at the tertiary institutions. Yearly
Increased capacity to make responsible decisions. Reduction of finiancially motivated trans-generational sexual relationships and transactional sex. Analysing the rate of disengagement from risk behaviour by the students. Yearly
Reduction in the exposure and vulnerability related to HIV/AIDS Increased access and use of condoms and other preventive skills Analyzing the use of condoms distributed to the hall of residents and from the clinic Yearly
Increased tolerance and reduced stigmatisation Reduced cases of stigmatisation and increased openess amongst the students living positively Analysing the statistics of students that are openly living positively. Yearly
Impact
Students are usually the opinion leaders in the different communities from wich they come from and they will positively contribute to their peers’ sexual and reproductive health thereby helping the community at large.The project will have a posetive impact on the national economic growth as the students would have been equiped with life long skills that can help them to prolong their lifetime.
Risk assessment
The environment and atmosphere that is prevalent tertiary institutions is highly politicized and the fight for sexual and reproductive rights might be mistaken for political activism.SAAF is going to take the advantage of the existence of the inclusive government and use the opportunity to discharge its duties indiscriminately.
Monitoring and evaluation
The SAAF national executive council that is composed of students from various tertiary institutions around the country is to monitor and help the secretariat in implementing the project. The national executive council will submit a report to the board of trustees so is the secretariat. Members of the SAAF are going to be given assessment forms that they will fill in to measure the impact and to identify areas that need improvement in the project implementation.
SAAF is going to work hand in hand with the Zimbabwe Medical Students Association (ZMSA) and the campus clinic staff to gather and analyse the incidences of HIV and STIs. The project will be concluded by an audit to be conducted by an independent firm
Geographical Scope: National Added on 06-24-2010 Updated on 06-24-2010 |
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