Ethiopia

In Ethiopia, HC3 strengthened capacity to design, produce and implement high-quality social and behavior change communication (SBCC) campaigns to prevent HIV. Specifically, HC3 worked with the Ethiopian government, including the Ministry of Health (MOH) and HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Office (HAPCO), to strengthen coordination, as well as SBCC strategic design and knowledge management.

The project supported increased capacity of behavior change professionals and institutions in Ethiopia. In conjunction with other organizations working to prevent HIV, HC3 increased the practice of key HIV preventive behaviors among urban youth and other high-priority audiences within the general population.

The HC3 Ethiopia team successfully transitioned the National AIDS Resource Center (NARC) Talkline and Library services to the MOH. A transition working group composed of MOH, HAPCO and various parts of the Addis Ababa (AA) Health Bureau managed the transition process. Since HC3 Ethiopia began managing the NARC services in 2014, the NARC Talkline has provided counseling, information and referral services to 176,539 callers, the NARC Library has hosted 19,764 visitors including researchers, medical and public health students, media professionals, social workers, in-school youth and project managers, and the ARC clearinghouse has distributed 111,870 SBCC materials to governmental agencies, NGOs and other groups.

Ethiopia’s Community of Practice on Springboard: Since launching the face-to-face Springboard meeting series in September 2014, HC3 has organized a total of three face-to-face Springboard community of practice (CoP) meetings. The first took place in November 2014 under the theme, Understanding the Role of Media for Behavior Change with a total of 19 SBCC practitioners in attendance, including staff from UN agencies, local Ethiopian and international organizations and HC3 Ethiopia. The second meeting on Small, Doable SBCC was facilitated by FHI360 in January 2015 with 14 SBCC practitioners from USG partners, local implementers and the private sector. The third and most recent meeting on mHealth for Behavior Change Interventions was facilitated by IFHP/Pathfinder in April 2015.

MULU Project: In collaboration with PSI and World Learning, orientation workshops, HC3 organized 952 Talkline counselors on the Mitigate, Understand, Leverage, and Unite (MULU) Prevention Project including health service referral linkages and directories so counselors can provide tailored information and referrals specific to most at-risk populations (MARPs). In addition, HC3 Ethiopia helped develop a training guide to empower peer educators with basic counseling skills that would allow them to support and motivate behavior change amongst their peers. HC3 also supported the MULU project in the interpretation of qualitative data collected from target MARP groups which will inform program analysis of risk factors, condom use and gender based violence issues among intervention beneficiaries. Based on the findings, recommendations for existing MARPs programs were developed.