Health
Maternal and child health
Mentor Mothers Programme
Facilitating early antenatal care for pregnant women and adolescents for the elimination of infant and maternal mortality: The project aims at preventing HIV infections among women of reproductive age (15–49 years), preventing unwanted pregnancies among women living with HIV, and providing women living with HIV access to lifelong ART to maintain their health and prevent transmission during pregnancy, labor, and breastfeeding. PLAEP recruits a cohort of Community based champions between the ages of 19 and 49 who are living with HIV and have at least two years’ experience in the PMTCT programme, as mentor mothers. The mentor mothers have accepted their HIV status and willing to share their experience living with HIV with other pregnant women living with HIV. The mentor mothers undergo basic training in PMTCT, HIV treatment and care to enhance their communication skills and quality of support to their peers. After their training, the mentor mothers roll out community outreach activities to stimulate demand for maternal and newborn health care services.
Adolescent HIV prevention interventions
Smart choices
Smart Choices is a 6-hour long seminar focused on developing decision-making skills for the youth, with a particular application to understanding sexually transmitted infections [STIs] including HIV/AIDS and the impact sexual decisions can have on them reaching their life dreams. The Smart Choices workshop is designed to help combat the HIV epidemic by educating adolescents and young adults about the choices they make about sexuality and discover that some choices may profoundly affect the dreams they have for their life. It includes a spiritual dimension of life and how that resource can be harnessed to enhance decision-making. In the process of learning about HIV infection and transmission, participants also realize that they are unique, valuable, and deeply loved. Smart choices is fun packed and illustrated through a series of videos, games, and interaction with the learners.
Smart choices was adopted by PLAEP as an evangelistic outreach program and taught in more than 30 schools and churches in Kitwe and surrounding towns on the Copperbelt province. Over 10,000 school going youths reached with life skills information and training on positive decision making, delaying sexual debut, HIV, and STIs.
Youth Safe spaces
Promoting access to adolescent Sexual Reproductive Health services through youth safe spaces. The safe spaces programme dubbed “youth friendly corners” was initiated to offers a continuum of SRHR services, committed to increasing knowledge of Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights (SRHR) and access to appropriate Youth Friendly (YF) services for adolescents in PLAEP’s target community.
In 2016 and 2017, PLAEP successfully set up two youth friendly corners at Ipusukilo and Riverside clinics. Ipusukilo and Riverside clinics are both in PLAEP’s catchment and serve the same target communities.