Raising Aids Awareness through Community Mobilization

AIDS support and prevention programs are poorly developed in developing nations. The difficulties of increasing AIDS awareness are compounded by illiteracy and lack of access of large numbers of people to formal education. These facts make community-based AIDS education, counselling and information service an essential alternative. One such system is the Family AIDS Caring Trust (FACT) based in Mutare, Zimbabwe. FACT is a volunteer organization with most of manpower initially coming from Christian religious organizations. Volunteers were trained as AIDS counselors, and over the first 18 months, 120 meetings were organized through FACT with 12,000 people in attendance. Doctors were counselled to refer patients with HIV/AIDS to have a FACT nurse visit and counsel their patients at home. FACT volunteers organize their own meetings after their training and they organize their own financial assistance. FACT produced a training booklet, but literature used by volunteers during their meetings was prepared by the volunteers. Information handed out or mass media campaigns were generally disbelieved by the people in favor of traditional beliefs, but a discussion with another community member trained by FACT was highly effective. The FACT organization is an inexpensive effective alternative providing a community-based AIDS education and awareness program.