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South Africa - 45,000 young people reached |
The Department of Health and Education has requested ACET Eastern Cape to replicate its programmes throughout the province.
Over the last year ACET Eastern Cape has reached over 45,000 young people in primary and secondary schools with culturally sensitive and locally relevant HIV and AIDS education and training. The training programmes have been so well received by schools (with staff noting significant behaviour change amongst their students, and better attendance levels by girls), that ACET has been requested by the local Departments of Health and Education to replicate its programmes in new schools and communities in the Eastern Cape. This is a significant achievement for ACET Eastern Cape, and is testament to the continually refined and adapted content of ACET International’s HIV and AIDS training programmes.
Over the next two years, ACET Eastern Cape will be rolling out its education and training programmes in 39 new communities, in the districts of Thambo and Amathole. Through working in 20 high schools and 10 primary schools, and with 30 churches, ACET Eastern Cape anticipates reaching an estimated 17,500 people with HIV awareness and prevention messages, and 350 people with care and support services.
Nazo Nomaphetha is one of ACET Eastern Cape’s volunteer educators. He describes how he has become involved with ACET’s training programme in his community; I grew up in a time where we never discussed with our parents sexual related issues; I ended up being sexually active at an early stage which led me to drop out of school. The ACET EC education programme has opened an opportunity for me to go out to the youth and educate them about HIV and AIDS prevention, and how to reduce the risk of infection.
An external evaluation carried out by development consultant Dr David Mundy and with input from Tearfund, recently evaluated six aspects of ACET Eastern Cape’s work; effectiveness, impact, relevance, efficiency, sustainability, coordination and coherence. The evaluation concluded that the ‘achievements and standards of ACET Eastern Cape are outstanding in all areas’, going on to say that ‘ACET Eastern Cape has strong growth potential and is likely to have a significant impact in the future beyond their current geographic area’. It attributed the programme’s success to ACET Eastern Cape’s excellent leadership and dedicated team of staff and volunteers, alongside its methodology of working with local churches which has created a programme that is both community-led, and community-owned. |
