Catholic Relief Services has applied to be a DREAMS-implementing partner, and is now recruiting for the position of Program Manager I, DREAMS, based in Maseru, Lesotho.
Joint letter urging the UN to ensure that all Children are counted!
Regional Psychosocial Support Forum (2015)- Conference Communiqué
Theme: Love, Care and Protection, from Infancy to adolescence.
1st-3rd SEPTEMBER, 2015
VICTORIA FALLS, ZIMBABWE
The delegates at the PSS Forum comprising of experts from Government Ministries and Departments responsible for Orphans, Vulnerable Children and Youth (OVCY), health, education and skills development from all SADC Member States, civil society and academic partners from 27 countries gathered in Victoria Falls on the 1st to the 3rd of September 2015 under the theme Love, Care and Support, from Infancy to Adolescence.
Click here to download the full communiqué from the PSS forum 2015.
RIATT-ESA Consultancy Opportunity: Social Protection and Treatment - Access and Adherence
The Regional Inter Agency Task Team on Children & AIDS in Eastern and Southern Africa (RIATT-ESA) seeks the services of an experienced consultant to conduct a comprehensive appraisal of the literature in order to inform the strategic direction of its advocacy programme on the viability of child sensitive social protection mechanism in Eastern and Southern Africa.
The Consultant will be required to conduct a comprehensive review of existing literature (published, programme documents and grey literature) on issues (psychological, social and economic) related to social protection in children. The Consultant will be further required to document the potential role of social protection with regard to access to HIV treatment and ART adherence in children, synthesizing key issues in the literature and also documenting existing knowledge gaps in the field.
The contract will be for the period (1 September - 4 December 2015).
Click here to download the full terms of reference.
Qualified candidates are requested to submit a research proposal with CV, cover letter, indicative budget and work plan to proposals@repssi.org by Monday 24 August 2015.
The Regional Inter Agency Task Team on Children & AIDS in Eastern and Southern Africa (RIATT-ESA) is a unique, multi-sectoral partnership of organizations focusing on the care and support for children affected by AIDS in eastern and southern Africa.1 With child participation and human rights as one of its core strategic areas, RIATT-ESA advocates for policies and programmes that improve the well-being of children. Advocating for child sensitive social protection policies that foster the wellbeing of children especially in high burden HIV contexts is key strategic objective of RIATT-ESA.
UNAIDS survey of civil society organizations engaged in the response to AIDS
The Community Mobilization Division at UNAIDS is doing a survey of civil society organizations engaged in the response to AIDS in order to better understand and document trends in financing. The survey explores external and national funding sources for particular activities, organizational support needs, and other issues.
We hope that all civil society organizations engaged in the AIDS response will complete the survey so that we can have the fullest, most accurate picture of community financing.
Our goal is to support strategic investment in community responses to HIV by better understanding the funding situation and trends over the last three years.
Click on the clink below to see the survey in the different languages.
- English - https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/H275DFS
- French - https://fr.surveymonkey.com/r/FVPL9CQ
It should only take about 15 minutes to complete. In the survey we ask for your best estimates of funding sources and allocations, and do not expect you to do in-depth review of your organization's financial history.
Please complete the survey no later than Friday, 11 September. If you have questions feel free to write Chris Mallouris at MallourisC@unaids.org
Time to Step Up: Press Release
Meeting Needs of Children, Adolescents and Families Critical to Defeating AIDS in Eastern & Southern Africa
New Call to Action Outlines Action Steps Needed to Prioritize Children Affected by AIDS in the era of the Sustainable Development Goals
July 20, 2015, Vancouver, British Columbia – Today, at the 2015 Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment & Prevention, the Regional Inter Agency Task Team on Children & AIDS (RIATT-ESA) and the Coalition for Children Affected by AIDS, launched a new, evidence-based, call to action outlining the urgent steps needed to prioritize children affected by HIV and AIDS in the post-2015 development agenda. The call to action, titled Time to Step Up, highlights the pressing need to reach children, adolescents and those who care for them with necessary care and support.
"Though great progress has been made in the fight against HIV and AIDS globally, advancements for children are lagging behind," said RIATT-ESA Chair Noreen Huni.
In 2013, only 42 percent of HIV exposed infants received early diagnostic services within the first two months of life. In addition, 190,000 children under the age of 14 died of AIDS-related causes due to lack of treatment. At the same time, meeting the needs of children, adolescents and their families — particularly in eastern and southern Africa, the regions of the world with the highest levels of HIV prevalence — is critical to defeating the disease.
But it is not just treatment and prevention that must be addressed.
“Treatments and cures won’t bring a deceased parent back to life; the long-term effects of the disease will still be felt,” said John Miller, Director of the Coalition for Children Affected by AIDS. “We must better integrate the needs of children, adolescents and those who care for them into regional and national plans, and provide help to ensure optimal child and adolescent development.”
The call to action outlines eight critical action steps needed to provide children, adolescents and carers with the focused attention required to turn the tide on HIV and AIDS:
- Scale-up access to PMTCT services
- Scale-up paediatric testing (early infant diagnosis)
- Increase treatment access and reduce loss to follow-up
- Provide HIV-sensitive social protection services
- Invest in the early years of children living affected by HIV
- Strengthen linkages between child protection and HIV services
- Intensify HIV prevention and treatment for adolescents
- Strengthen support for primary caregivers and community level care providers
“Children are the most vulnerable among us and unable to advocate for themselves,” said Huni. “We must take swift action, putting the proper policies and programmes in place to ensure we reach all children affected by HIV and AIDS.”
The full call to action can be accessed here.
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About the Regional Inter-Agency Task Team on Children & AIDS in Eastern & Southern Africa (RIATT-ESA)
RIATT-ESA is a unique, multi-sectoral partnership of organisations focusing on the care and support for children affected by AIDS in eastern and southern Africa. RIATT-ESA works to support the UNGASS declaration of commitment to universal access for children to prevention, care, treatment and support in the context of HIV and AIDS, by harnessing the power of a multi-sectoral joint response within the eastern and southern African region.
For more information about RIATT-ESA, please go to www.riatt-esa.org
About The Coalition for Children Affected by AIDS
The Coalition for Children Affected by AIDS (The Coalition for Children) brings funders and technical experts together to advocate for the best policy, research, and programmes for children because children are a vulnerable population that has too often been overlooked.
For more about the Coalition for Children, please go to www.ccaba.org.
Contact:
Noreen Huni
REPSSI CEO/RIATT-ESA Chair
+27 11 998 5820
Naume Kupe
RIATT-ESA Programme Manager
+27 11 998 5820
World Vision International calls for the word “children” to remain in the Sustainable Development Goals Declaration paragraphs 8 and 19
Course Announcement: Women’s Health, Masculinities, and Empowerment. Advocacy and Leadership Training.
Consultancy opportunity
Download -Rise Project Overview
Retrak, along with Family for Every Child and the International Centre at University of Bedfordshire, is implementing the RISE project, to promote and facilitate learning on Recovery and Reintegration from Child Sexual Exploitation.
They are currently recruiting two project coordinators, one to based here in sub-Saharan Africa. Please do circulate this information widely to colleagues in this region who might be suitable and interested in this post.
Full details of the post and how to apply can be accessed via our partner’s website at Family for Every Child at this link: http://www.familyforeverychild.org/who-we-are/vacancies/.
The deadline for applications for both posts is 28th June.
The project will focus on three regions: Latin America and the Caribbean, sub-Saharan Africa and South & Central Asia. It has three specific objectives:
1. To establish and manage a locally accessible global network, utilising global and regional online learning hubs, to support learning on Recovery and Reintegration (R&R) for children affected by child sexual exploitation (CSE).
2. To develop and implement 3 learning projects that capture local learning in order to positively influence policy and practice on R&R for children affected by CSE.
3. To improve, regionally and globally, policy and practice on R&R for children affected by CSE, by collecting and disseminating the learning from this project.
More details are in the job descriptions, which can be downloaded with the application form via the link above, and in the project summary, attached.
Or you can contact
Joanna Wakia -Monitoring and Research Advisor
t: +254 724 698 537
p: PO Box 25740, Nairobi 00603, Kenya
Web: www.retrak.org
A comprehensive analysis of the HIV & AIDS legislation, bills, policies, and strategies in the East African community
HIV and AIDS/STI and TB Multisectoral Strategic Plan and Implementation Framework 2015 - 2020
This analysis presents a synthesis of a number of laws, bills, policies and strategies in the context of HIV in the five Partner States.
Recently there has been a surge of national laws to address HIV in a number of African countries. At the regional level, there are at least two regional model laws developed by regional economic communities. These are the West Africa HIV Model Law and the Southern Africa HIV Model Law. Model laws serve to set the standards, norms for good practices and for legal as well as policy reviews and reform at domestic and regional levels. Ideally, national legislators should strive to emulate, adapt and domesticate model laws and make them applicable at the national level.
In a bid to harmonise and standardized the health policies in East Africa, the EAC in partnership with the Eastern African National Networks of AIDS Service Organisations (EANNASO) and the East African Health Platform (EAHP) have requested the support of the United Nations Development Programme Regional Service Centre for Africa (UNDP RSCA) to conduct a comparative analysis of the EAC partners states’ HIV legislations, bills, policies and strategies to identify legal, policy and strategic gaps and develop a framework to address them.