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1. Introduction to Care, Involvement and Action
   Last updated: 29.06.02
About "Community Lessons, Global Learning"
This report shares the highlights and lessons learned from the second year of “Community Lessons, Global Learning” - a collaboration between the International HIV/AIDS Alliance and Positive Action, Glaxo Wellcome. This report is also available in PDF format by following this link (32 pages, 455 Kbytes).

The Alliance is an international non-governmental organisation (NGO) that supports community action on HIV/AIDS in developing countries. To date, the Alliance has supported over 1,100 community based prevention and care initiatives in more than 13 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Positive Action is Glaxo Wellcome’s long-term international programme of HIV education, care and community support.

“Community Lessons, Global Learning” was launched in October 1997. The aims of the three year project are:

  • To help community groups to improve the quality of their HIV/AIDS work – by learning from the successes and failures of other organisations working in a similar context both within their own country and in other continents.


  • To improve the quality of support to community groups by regional and international policy-makers and donors – by communicating community level experiences and needs.


The theme of the first year of “Community Lessons, Global Learning” was moving beyond awareness raising in HIV prevention. The lessons and recommendations from the project were published in “Beyond Awareness Raising: Community lessons about improving responses to HIV/AIDS” – a report disseminated world-wide to over 2,000 NGOs, policy makers, people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHA) and donors.

Based on the lessons learned in the first year of the project, the theme of the second year was community care and support. Experience in the first year clearly demonstrated how “moving beyond awareness raising” could be practically achieved through:

  • linking prevention and care and

  • enhancing community based care and support.


As in the previous year, the project was carried out through a series of intensive workshops – which focused specifically on sharing lessons and experiences to strengthen the capacity of community based organisations. In total there were three national workshops (Ecuador, Senegal & Zambia) and one regional workshop (Asia – with organisations from Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Nepal, Philippines, Sri Lanka and Thailand).

The workshops enabled NGOs, community based organisations (CBOs) and people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHA) to exchange their practical experiences, successes and problems around work in community care and support. To increase opportunities for learning, they also included participants from organisations outside the Alliance, such as government, national and international NGOs. For example, the workshop in Ecuador involved representatives from the government (such as the Ministry of Education), donors (such as USAID), national NGOs (such as the family planning association), United Nations (such as UNAIDS) and the corporate sector (such as Merck, Sharp and Dohme). The workshops also incorporated technical exchanges between different countries. For example, four representatives of the Alliance partner programme (or linking organisation) and local NGOs from Burkina Faso participated in the workshop in Senegal and staff from the linking organisations in Ecuador and Cambodia participated in the workshop in Zambia. In total, the second year of the project involved over 182 participants in 4 workshops from 15 countries.

This document is based upon the reports of the “Community Lessons, Global Learning” country and regional workshops held during the second year of the project. It also incorporates other documentation about the Alliance’s work in community care and support. As well as bringing together the relevant information, it aims to identify lessons learned and “good practice,” and to promote policy recommendations for future action. Therefore – while designed to be of interest to a variety of stakeholders in the global response to HIV/AIDS – it is particularly aimed at policy makers, donors and NGO support programmes.

International HIV/AIDS Alliance – Our mission Positive Action – Our Mission

The mission of the International HIV/AIDS Alliance is to enable communities in developing countries to play a full and effective role in the global response to AIDS. The Alliance accomplishes this by mobilising a broad range of NGO and community groups, increasing their access to resources at a local level, and enhancing their technical and organisational skills. The Alliance also supports groups to share lessons learned, to collaborate with others, and to have a voice in national and international policy development. In this way, the Alliance encourages creative prevention and care efforts that respond to the real needs of communities, are owned by local people and have a sustainable impact.

In many countries, the Alliance works with and through one primary partner NGO in order to facilitate a broad response to the epidemic. These partner groups – known as “linking organisations” – facilitate collaborative planning and priority setting within the NGO sector responding to HIV/AIDS, and help other NGOs and community groups access technical, financial and management support in order to implement prevention and care initiatives more effectively.

Positive Action - Our Mission

Glaxo Wellcome, as a world leader in HIV therapy, is committed through the Positive Action programme, to engage in open dialogue and to collaborate closely with individuals, community groups, healthcare providers, governments, international agencies and others worldwide, in order to pursue the common goals of more effective HIV prevention, education, and enhanced care and support for people living with or affected by HIV/AIDS.

Experiences of “Community Lessons, Global Learning” in Zambia

“Often you can see that things are not working, but you don’t know why. With this systematic way of looking at our work – our strengths, weaknesses and lessons learned – we’ll be able to move forwards.”
Henry Zulu, Nchelenge District AIDS Task Force

“I’m impressed. One of the things I noticed here is that everyone has been very open – which is what makes the difference. If we are prepared to be open, we have the potential to learn and to improve what we’re doing.”
Cathie Mukwakwa, Zambia Integrated Health Programme

“I’ve been delighted to hear the type of soul searching and self analysis that has happened in this workshop. It’s good to hear that there are many things that we do well, but it’s also important to know that there are many things that we could do better.”
Karen Shelley, United States Agency for International Development Mission, Zambia

Summary of results: Years 1 and 2 of “Community Lessons, Global Learning”

  • Key lessons learned and models of good practice on two major themes - beyond awareness raising in HIV prevention and community care and support - identified and shared in and between Africa, Asia and Latin America.

  • 8 country workshops (in Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Ecuador x 2, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Zambia) and 1 regional workshop (in Asia) carried out and documented.

  • Over 300 representatives of NGOs, PLHA, government, private sector and donors participated from 15 countries.

  • Over 2,000 copies of the report “Beyond Awareness Raising”– synthesising the lessons from the first year – disseminated internationally.

  • Results and lessons of project shared through the media and at one World AIDS Conference (Geneva 1998) and five Regional AIDS Conferences (Manila 1997, Abidjan 1997, Lima 1997, Lusaka 1999 and Kuala Lumpur 1999).


Source: Care, Involvement and Action
This is an extract from Care, Involvement and Action: Mobilising and supporting community responses to HIV/AIDS care and support in developing countries, published by the International HIV/AIDS Alliance in July 2000.

To view the whole report follow this link

To download, complete with graphics, in pdf format (which requires Adobe Acrobat software to read it) follow this link (file size: 455 Kbytes).