Community Engagement is Improving HIV Prevention Programs in Tanzania

December 21, 2017Community leaders are key to reaching men with voluntary medical male circumcision services.One afternoon in Masanwa village, in Tanzania ’s Simiyu region, an old man showed up at the outreach clinic, seeking care for a wound.The facility he came to mainly provides voluntary male medical circumcision (VMMC), which helps prevent the spread of HIV. His wound was unrelated to the facility ’s usual services, but the VMMC technical advisor on duty struck up a conversation with him about male circumcision services in the village, with the hope of identifying potential new clients.The man had lived in this community for seventy-plus years, and had a deep knowledge of the culture and population in his village and the surrounding neighborhoods. So he offered the health workers a very useful piece of advice:“We [in the village] know each other very well,” he said. “We have common values and interests that unite and bring us together as men.It is through that closeness that we share information and confide in each other about our wives, children, and what happens in our families and private lives. Find a way to use influential peers in the village —they will tell you who is circumcised and who is not.” We work with community-owned resources and persons such as council multisectoral HIV/AIDS coordinators, ward executive officers, village executive officers, street and hamlet leaders, religious and traditional leaders, and prominent adult peer networks.  T...
Source: IntraHealth International - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Source Type: news