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   Last updated: 29.06.02
Beyond Awareness Raising: Community lessons about improving responses to HIV/AIDS
This is the first report of “Community Lessons, Global Learning” - a programme to share lessons about responding to HIV/AIDS between communities, countries and continents. This report is also available in PDF format by following this link (25 pages, 465 Kbytes).

1.“Community Lessons, Global Learning”

This report aims to communicate the key lessons of the first year of “Community Lessons, Global Learning” - a collaboration between the International HIV/AIDS Alliance and Positive Action, GlaxoWellcome.

The International HIV/AIDS Alliance is an international nongovernmental organisation (NGO) that supports community action on AIDS in developing countries. Positive Action is Glaxo Wellcome’s long-term international programme of HIV education, care and community support.

The central aim of the three year “Community Lessons, Global Learning” programme is 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.


The programme also aims to:

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


A key element of the “Community Lessons, Global Learning” initiative is the organisation of annual country seminars in six of the countries where the Alliance and partner linking organisations have established comprehensive NGO support programmes. These are Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Ecuador, Senegal and Sri Lanka. The seminars enable NGOs and people living with HIV/AIDS to exchange their practical experiences and lessons learned in HIV/AIDS prevention and care. To increase opportunities for learning, the seminars include representatives from organisations outside of the Alliance as well - from the private sector, government, donors, and the United Nations, as well as other NGOs.

“Community Lessons, Global Learning” also encourages international technical exchanges among linking organisations and other NGO support programmes. For example, Lilly Marquez of COMUNIDEC, Ecuador, participated in the Partners’ Meeting of HASAB, Bangladesh, while Marie Rose Sawadogo of IPC, Burkina Faso, participated in that of ANCS, Senegal.

“Community Lessons, Global Learning” was launched at the 4th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific in Manila, October 1997. By June 1998, the first round of country seminars had been held - directly involving over 300 participants from NGOs and community groups, and many more from other sectors.

This report is based upon the documentation materials of those meetings as well as the 1997 Alliance Linking Organisation Meeting in Senegal (held in collaboration with NGOs supported by the Population Council in Eastern and Southern Africa, with the support of Positive Action). It also draws on lessons from Alliance partners in other countries - such as India, Morocco, Mexico and the Philippines.

The mission of the International HIV/AIDS Alliance
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 nongovernmental 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 AIDS, and help other NGOs and community groups access technical, financial and management support in order to more effectively implement prevention and care initiatives.

Positive Action: Our Mission
GlaxoWellcome, as a world leader in HIV therapy, is committed through the Positive Action Programme, to engage in open dialogue and to collaborate closely wit individuals, community groups, health care providers, international agencies and others world-wide in order to pursue the common goals of more effective HIV prevention, education, enhanced care and support for people with or affected by HIV/AIDS.

Bringing stakeholders together
For example, the Partners’ Meeting of Alliance Lanka, Sri Lanka, was held during 20 - 21 January 1998 in Colombo. The participants included 32 representatives of partner NGOs from throughout the country, including those working with youth, free trade zone workers and slum communities. They also included staff and board members of Alliance Lanka, representatives of the Alliance, and participants from the European Union, UNAIDS, USAID, and the National AIDS Control Programme. It was also attended by Md. Enamul Kabir, Programme Director of HASAB, the Alliance linking organisation in Bangladesh.

Perspectives on “Community Lessons, Global Learning”
“Programmes that focus on the cultural and psycho-social issues faced by people living with HIV/AIDS, such as this, have been demonstrated to have a major impact in fighting this epidemic. We are delighted to be working with the International HIV/AIDS Alliance which has a strong track record in helping local communities develop innovative and effective strategies to fight the virus.”
Ben Plumley, Positive Action, GlaxoWellcome

“This is a very positive project. It will help communities to share ideas and to benefit from the experiences of similar groups not only from other parts of their country, but other continents. The project will help to remove some of the isolation experienced by some of these communities and will help to give the communities and the individuals most vulnerable to or affected by HIV and AIDS the skills, ideas and innovation necessary to do their work as effectively as possible.”
Jeffrey O’Malley, International HIV/AIDS Alliance

Source: Beyond Awareness Raising
This is an extract from Beyond Awareness Raising: Community lessons about improving responses to HIV/AIDS, published by the International HIV/AIDS
Alliance in 1998.

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 465 Kbytes).