Health Program
Promoting sexual and reproductive health and rights, family planning services, HIV/AIDS prevention and protection, mother-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT), reproductive
health, maternal and newborn health (RMNCH), and nutrition are the main areas of focus for Hiwot.
Communication for Health, a current project being funded by John Snow Inc. (JSI/JHU), is receiving funding from USAID in order to increase knowledge and beneficial practices concerning health through Social and Behavioral change communication (SBCC) approach in the East Gojam Zone of Amhara. This project mainly focuses on multiple health areas including: reproductive health, maternal newborn and child health (RMNCH), Malaria, Tuberculosis (TB), WASH, Mother to Child Transmission of HIV (PMTCT) and Nutrition.

Addressing the Sexual and Reproductive Health Needs of Adolescents and Young People is receiving fund from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and Amplifychange to eradicate early marriage and reduce early and closely spaced child bearing practices among girls and young women in the North Shoa Zone of the Amhara region. The project integrates age segmented, status oriented information and services to demanding and utilizing adolescent sexual and reproductive health services and empowering adolescents and youth. Comprehensive sexuality education and information project intends to create awareness about sexuality and Sexual and reproductive health through applying mass and intensive social and behavioral change approach; and youth friendly education modalities for quality and accessible services to in and out of school children and youth.

Keeping Gils in school and out of early marriage is one of the projects supported by The David and Lucile Packard Foundation and Amplify change as part of their strategy to help young women receive the quality reproductive health information, services and education they need to thrive. Because villages are too far apart from one another, it is not feasible to build and more high schools. Hiwot Ethiopia has created “safe house” near high schools in three woredas in Amhara region. Girls can live in the houses while they attend high school, eliminating the daily trek to school. The project also provides support and companionship for the girls, including books and educational materials. The girls receive monthly stipends as well as reproductive health information and supplies like sanitary pads so they do not miss classes when they are menstruating.

HIV & STI risk reduction among in school youth, is a project implemented by Hiwot Ethiopia and funded by AIDS Health Foundation in order to increase knowledge of HIV and STIs and VCT service practices of secondary school youths.  The project goal is to prevent the rapid spread of HIV and STIs by creating awareness and facilitating VCT access for students. Furthermore, creating a safe environment for mostly high risk urban vulnerable girls is another project to increase commercial sex workers knowledge on HIV prevention and supporting their economic status.

 

Prevention of MARPs group from HIV/AIDS, VCT & STIs in Addis Ababa

Project title: Increasing the knowledge, attitude and practices of Most at risk groups in Addis Ababa

Hiwot Ethiopia was implemented increasing the knowledge, attitude and practices of Most at Risk groups by the support of Engederhealth. The project was implemented in three sub cities of Addis Ababa targeting in and out of school youth and community groups. The overall objective of the program is to improve the situation for HIV/AIDS situation among children, youth and the community. Hiwot Ethiopia has employed the following objectives:

1. To increasing the knowledge, attitudes and practices of children, youth and the community for the prevention of HIV/AIDS, STIs and promotion of VCT services.
2. To increase the knowledge, and improve the attitudes and practices of vulnerable urban and rural boys, girls and adult men to challenge male gender norms, for the prevention of HIV & AIDS, SRH problems and GBV;
3. To facilitate access to medical, legal and psychosocial support for vulnerable boys and girls and their partners;
4. To develop and strengthen coordination efforts and a supportive environment among the community and youth focused CSOs for the sustainable implementation of HIV/AIDS prevention and VCT services;

Major achievements

Group Peer discussion: Intensive group peer discussions were conducted in targeted secondary schools students of Addis Ababa targeting in using the male as partner/MAP approaches. The discussions covered: act like a man, Levels of HIV risks, and HIV prevention methods, VCT services, Stigma & discrimination.

Evening Students group peer education/ GPE: This intervention regarded as principal element of the project as it targeted evening students. Hiwot Ethiopia’s assessment at the planning stage revealed that the majority of these students found to be housemaids. Due to various socio-economic factors, this target population considered to be highly vulnerable to HIV. Many interventions directed to HIV prevention neglected housemaids, since they are “hard to reach” target.

Peoples with Disabled training: The peer educators training was conducted based on the edited MARPs Manual for peoples with disabilities in collaboration with the Ethiopians for Ethiopians Blind Association and the Ethiopian National Deaf Association peer educators, for 2 and ½ day. The selection of the peer educators was conducted in collaboration of Ethiopians for Ethiopians Blind Association. During the training selected 8 topics of the training manual a: Act like a Man, HIV and AIDS, Levels of HIV Risk, STDs, Proper Use of Condoms, Discussion on the use of Condoms, Sexual Violence, and Establishing Consent for Safe Sex, covered.

Evening Student peer educators training: During the reporting period peer educators training was given for most at risk evening students’ from selected 20 target schools. Out of the total participants 25% of them were housemaids. The participants received issues on act like a Man, HIV and AIDS, Levels of HIV Risk, STDs, Proper Use of Condoms, discussion on the use of Condoms, Sexual Violence, and Establishing Consent for Safe Sex issues was covered and the trainee were awarded with certificate.

Out of school youth club discussion: The out of school youth clubs discussions was aimed at largely addressing most at risk in and out of school boys and girls in Addis Ababa. One of the objectives to address out of school youths was to increase awareness and understanding of HIV prevention. In fulfilling this objective the organization planned to reach vulnerable out of school youths in collaboration over 18 out of school youth clubs in Addis Ababa. Participants/peers reflected that the issues or messages raised during group peer education helped them to build high level awareness on the role of harmful male gender norms as aggravating the spread of HIV and STIs.

Teachers training: training for evening school teachers who become facilitators for the most at risk peoples targeting project. These teachers, who were supposed to coordinate and facilitate in-school intervention, They are drawn from 20 schools and trained with 5 training groups. The training was conducted based on MAP/MARPs hybrid manual. The 8 topics of this manual are: Act like a Man, HIV and AIDS, Levels of HIV Risk, STDs, Proper Use of Condoms, Discussion on the use of Condoms, Sexual Violence, and Establishing Consent for Safe Sex.

At the end of the training participants (teachers) confirmed to work with Hiwot Ethiopia in an effort to stop the spread of HIV and AIDS among evening students, particularly among house maids. They ensured their commitment to coordinate and facilitate in-school intervention so that they can contribute for the promotion of safer sexual behavior and practices among evening students.

Community based discussions: The community based organizations (CBO) undertook several series of group peer discussions based on standardized male as partner/MAP group education manuals. The target individuals intensively discussed male gender norms for the prevention of HIV and gender based violence (GBV). The group discussions were conducted in a participatory manner with lively discussions among participants on MAP topics like learning about gender, act like a man, levels of HIV risk, alphabets of prevention, getting tested for HIV, from violence to respect, sexual consent…etc. The discussions were facilitated and led by trained MAP peer educators.

Support out of school youth clubs: Hiwot has taken a need based approach to offer the capacity building support over 18 youth clubs to build the capacity and ensures sustainability. To strengthening their capacity different music materials purchased and donated for the clubs/associations. Accordingly, Hiwot has provided financial supports for youth clubs/ associations to manage the project activities based on the club’s annual plan of action. The youth clubs/association were received monthly finance to support the peer to peer discussion, club leaders and peer educator’s monthly stipend and office administration costs. Accordingly Hiwot has provided technical support for youth clubs to deliver quality information and services for youths.

Support persons with Disability association: Hiwot has taken a need based approach to offer the capacity building support for two persons with disability associations in order to motivate their efforts on the prevention of HIV & AIDS in Addis Ababa. The Ethiopian National Association for the deaf and Ethiopians for Ethiopian blind Association have been donated different music material, computers and other stationary materials.

Father’s day which was celebrated at the end of June was the biggest event. The public panel discussion held at Addis Ababa city council with the involvement of various stakeholders such as HAPCO, Women’s Children and Youth Affairs, Education Bureaus, School Officials, Women association leaders and members, Club members from the respective sub cities, as well as fathers and children. The fathers’ day is being celebrated with the motto of “I am a good father! I protect myself and my family from HIV”. Accordingly 20 minutes radio conversation and SMS message targeting 100000 people were conducted during the day.

Health Program In Amahara

ASRHR/FP and Girls Education

To address early marriage as well as early and closely spaced pregnancies in the Amhara region, Hiwot Ethiopia has been implementing a community based adolescent and youth reproductive health program in four woredas (districts) of the North Shewa Zone since 2002 with the support of the German Foundation for World Population and the David & Lucile Packard Foundation. Currently the organization has been implementing such project with the support of other Amplifychange and others.

The overall objective of the program is to delay marriage and promote birth spacing among young peoples and newly married couples. The program is based on the lessons acquired from a similar project model known as PRACHAR, which is implemented in Bihar, India. PRACHAR is a community based program which uses multi-disciplinary youth focused age and life stage appropriate communication methods. Hiwot has adopted selected components of this model and employed a three pronged objectives:

1. Empowering girls and young couples with SRH/FP information
2. Improving access to SRH/FP services
3. Fostering an enabling environment

Major achievements

The youth friendly health centers in close collaboration of public and private health facilities play a significant role in providing quality reproductive health information and services for young people.

Created strong referral arrangement with private and public health care facilities to provide youth friendly referral services for young people on SRH/FP/HIV prevention, counseling and testing and other services

In collaboration with health facilities, youth clubs, trained health extension workers and house to house facilitators, provided quality and youth friendly sexual reproductive health information and services for young people.

Young people living in the program areas were attended an age segmented (10-14, 15-19 & 20-24) peer group discussions and created better understanding and behaviors on sexual and reproductive health issues, including family planning and factors that expose young people to HIV and STIs

Safe houses created near to high schools in the woredas supported girls to attend the school and eliminating the daily trek to school. The safe home program provided support and companionship for girls, including reading rooms and educational materials. Due to the safe house support, we have seen a dramatic reduction in dropouts.

Community groups, religious leaders, government representatives, school community groups attended on outreach programs and received adequate information on girls education and barriers of girls education.

Youth clubs capacities improved so as to reach their peers in quality youth friendly information and services on SRH/FP/HIV prevention, counseling and testing and other.

Community action teams were established and strengthened which are comprised from religious fathers, government stakeholder and school representatives to fight against child marriage promotion of girls education.

Sanitary pad support: Girls were absent during menstrual cycle from the regular classes, this is serious problem in the country.  In order to help girls to attend their education and reduce absenteeism, Hiwot has been provided training on skills of locally made sanitary pad preparation , management of menstrual cycles and Sexual Reproductive Health information for girls living in the safe home and outside of the same home. As a result of such intervention girls school attendance increased

 

 

Education Program
Promoting the value of education (education for all) at the national and regional levels is the main goal of Hiwot Ethiopia's education program. Second, the organization provides students, school communities, and the school with useful capacity-building support to enable the delivery of high-quality education at all levels.

Education matters more, especially for girls

Education matters more, especially for girls, project builds upon the success of the project “Education matters more, especially for girls”, which was implemented between February 2015 and February 2017. Through strong cooperation between schools, government and community members, that project tackled a range of barriers, which kept girls from going to school or caused them to drop out. As a result, significantly more girls now go to and stay in school and support for girls’ education has increased within the wider community. This follow up proposal encompasses a two-year timeframe, to maintain and strengthen achievements of the previous project, attend to lessons learned and expand activities to 5 new locations and 10 schools. We will upscale the approach to reach more girls (and boys) and work ever more closely with community groups and government agencies.

“Education Matters more, especially for girls”. The overall goal is to ensure that girls in the target areas attend and complete primary and secondary education. And, the aim was to overcome obstacles to girls’ education in two rural and semi-rural districts of North Shewa Zone of the Ethiopian Regional State of Amhara. Activities engaged some 2,000 girls from primary and secondary schools directly and another 10,000 people indirectly (parents, siblings, teachers and other community stakeholders).

 

Enhancing quality education through the power of Sport and Play

Hiwot Ethiopia has been implementing enhancing quality education through the power of sport and play in Addis Ababa and Oromia region of Northshewa zone Wuchale Woreda by the financial and technical support of Right to Play.

The project is implementing in 51 primary schools of Addis Ababa and Wuchale woreda ( 31 in Addis Ababa and 20 in Oromia region. Among others 18 schools (10 from Addis Ababa and 8 from Oromia) received direct support from the project.

The overall objective of the project is to enhancing quality education, through the power of sport and play. The focused specific objectives are:

• Enhance interactive/positive learning environment in schools
• Enhance life skills development of children and youth
• Promote inclusion and empowerment of people with disabilities and girls
• Promote gender equality, child protection and building a peaceful community

The project is deployed different implementation strategies to address target community groups:

• Providing capacity building trainings to students, teachers, PTAs, coaches and parents
• Strengthening school club capacity through providing mini-media, and sport equipments
• Organizing community mobilization sessions to discuss on the barriers of education and other related issues
• Organize advocacy campaigns to advocate on issues of safe and protective school environment, children’s right including health

Keeping Gils in school and out of early marriage

Keeping Gils in school and out of early marriage is one of the integrated projects supported by The David and Lucile Packard Foundation and Amplify change as part of their strategy to help young women receive the quality reproductive health information, services and education they need to thrive. Because villages are too far apart from one another, it is not feasible to build and more high schools. Hiwot Ethiopia has created “safe house” near high schools in three woredas in Amhara region. Girls can live in the houses while they attend high school, eliminating the daily trek to school. The project also provides support and companionship for the girls, including books and educational materials. The girls receive monthly stipends as well as reproductive health information and supplies like sanitary pads so they do not miss classes when they are menstruating.

 

Children and Youth Right

According to Hiwot, the rights of children and youth should to be upheld and protected at the highest possible level. As a result, Hiwot has been advocating for children's and youth's rights and putting various programs into place to protection and give them the confidence to demand their rights.

Child Right Governance/Child participation

Empowering children to ensure their meaningful participation and demonstrating to their right, is currently implementing project by the support of Save the Children Since 2010. Hiwot Ethiopia, based on its past experiences of working on child right governance and child protection, has designed an intervention which aims to empower children and enhance their capacity to meaningfully participate in local level governance structures and demonstrate their rights.

This project has aimed to enhance child participation in local level governance, budget processes and budget analysis/tracking. It focuses on supporting child led initiatives to become model child clubs that prioritize and promote children’s issues. The project builds the capacity of children, CRCs and community representatives (council members) to lobby at the community and local government level for improved participation in budgeting for child health, education and social protection. They also lobby members of child right committees, NGOs and other community based institutions to promote and ensure children participation and access to essential services for vulnerable children.

The project mainly focuses on awareness raising, capacity building and advocacy campaigns to create conducive and protective environment to children in Addis Ababa.

Major achievements:

• The project has contributed to the empowerment of children and facilitated their meaningful participation in local level governance, including budgetary processes. Therefore, as the result of the supports provided by the project, children have been able to actively participate at woreda level budget planning sessions, advocacy and community support programs. For instance, in the year 2016, fifteen children participated in annual budget planning and approval sessions organized by the respective woreda’s Finance and Economy Offices. As a result of the intervention, many children, especially those who have been active members of child led initiatives, enhanced their communication, leadership and advocacy skills, life skills, drawing and art skills, financial management skills, skills necessary to participate in government budgetary process, and academic performance skills. Dive into the vibrant universe of iget bar flavours, including Mango, Strawberry, Blueberry, Watermelon, Pineapple, Grape, Peach, and Mint. Each puff delivers a unique taste experience, perfect for every vaping enthusiast.
• Children’s participation has been mainstreamed and practiced by woreda/district government offices along with budget allocation to vulnerable children. Children have participated in different platforms, discussed with woreda/district level government administrators and influenced the decision of their respective local governments. Children voiced their own opinions and interests to be included in the budget and project plan of their respective woreda administration and the project.
• The work of the CLIs has created opportunities for children to speak out about their views and concerns in the presence of decision makers. As a result, the target local governments have started to plan activities with the allocated budget for children in their annual plan. The efforts of CRCs (child support groups), council members, CLIs and woreda and sub city level decision makers have gone beyond budget allocation and they shared and scaled up their success to other woredas/districts.
• Woreda/district level council members had a significant role in their district budget cycle. Their involvement focused on advocating child budgeting to influence decision makers through organizing interface meetings, awareness raising platforms, and directly engaging in the budget planning and approval process.

Helpline services (936)

Hiwot Ethiopia established 936 free of charge hiplines, through the financial and technical support of its partner organization. The helpline mainly provides services to children and young people to protect them from any form of harms against their life. The helpline provides access to reporting cases of sexual abuse and exploitation, violence and other forms of harms, it helps in and out of school girls and young people to become assertive and active in protecting themselves and their peers, to empower the community to create an environment that protect girls and young people from sexual abuse, exploitation, harassment and GBV and other forms of harms and to provide adequate information for the target community groups.

 

Economic empowerment program
Through the provision of skill training, the facilitation of initial grant access, and the encouragement of local level saving and credit approach, Hiwot Ethiopia’s economic empowerment programs help to lower the rate of unemployment among youth and young women.

Livelihood development program in Hiwot Ethiopia context refers to interventions that enhance the readiness of young people to engage in sustainable livelihood activities and improve young peoples and adults’ access to market driven product and services that can enhance their economic success of their households.

Hiwot has three strategies for the livelihood programming

1. Human capacity building: this activity includes provide different formal and informal training to improve their practical technical knowledge and skill. It includes vocation and long life skill activities.
2. Building financial capital: this includes providing initial seed capital, encouraging saving and credit, providing financial aid for their long term training and or education, and link the with the micro finance institutions to get additional resources
3. Building physical capital: this includes provision of different equipments to the practical space of work

Achievements

Hiwot Ethiopia is working to change the lives of children and their parents through involving them in income generating activity by equipping them business development skill, organizing them in self help group and support seed capital. The IGA support aims to provide opportunities and meet the demand for income generating activities of vulnerable children and parents who face difficult living condition and economic hardships. Identification of vulnerable children and parents has been done by the respective wereda women children and youth affairs offices. Door-to-door visiting evaluation and meetings with the identified targets were undertaken by the program staff of Hiwot Ethiopia.

Hiwot Ethiopia with its partners has done the following in livelihood program:

• Business skill development training provided to commercial sex workers (30) and startup capital delivered based on their action plan.
• 111 households of vulnerable children and their parents are indentified and involved in baking injera, pottery, street coffee and tea sales, petty trade (vegetable and fruits), sheep fattening, tailoring, and weaving business.
• 151 family head(women) whose children are engaged in khat plantation, cutting and selling activities are identified with the aim of strengthening their families’ economic capacity and thereby able to protect children from such business
• 50 children aged above 15 are also supported to engage in age related petty trade so as generate income and reunify with their family. These children were stationed at Addis Ketema where the national bus station is located migrated from different parts of the country.
• Skill building training delivered for 15 most vulnerable young boys, of which 4 boys are people with disability. Most of the trainee received beatification training for 9 months. Parallel with the skill development training the young people’s received life skill trainings and participated in group peer discussions on the prevention of HIV/AIDS and SRH hazards.

• Provided music materials for 12 youth clubs to generate their income through performing music as means of income generating activities. The youth clubs/associations committed to support their members and the club running costs from the income. The youth club also committed to use the music groups for

Case 1

Meselech Ambaya is a 28 year old mother and foster parent with a heart-breaking story. She lives with her mother and together they take care of the two daughters (age 12 and 10) of her brother, her sister’s daughter (age 17), and her own 9 year old son who is mentally disabled. Her family has suffered a lot: her brother and his wife both died after being poisoned, Meselech’s husband has been imprisoned after a fatal car accident and her sister is simply unable to take care of her child. Meselech has been working on several jobs to provide for her family: first, she was working as a soldier and simultaneously studying to become an accountant. Subsequently, she moved to Sudan to serve as a housemaid and she send her income home. Meanwhile, her mother always stayed at home to take care of the children. However, after Meselech had been in Sudan for two years, her mother became unable to continue taking care of the four kids. Meselech went home and she panicked; she did not know what to do and how to provide for her family. Then, she went to the Woman, Youth and Children’s Affairs Office and asked for help. After two months the WYC affairs office got back to her, they selected her as a participant for Hiwot’s project and she received 5750 birr of Income generating capital. Now she has become a teff importer and is able to fulfil the basic needs of her family. Within one year, she has been able to save 1123 birr of her profits. In the future, she hopes to finish her accountant education and expand her business. However, her biggest wish is that one day, her son will also go to school: a special school for disabled children.

Case 2

Rahawa Abay (37) is a single mother who looks after two children, her own child (19) and the child of her deceased sister (7). Before Hiwot provided Rahawa with capital for income-generating activities, Rahawa worked in Dubai for four years as a housemaid. However, due to chest problems, she was no longer able to work as a housemaid and had to leave Ethiopia. She returned to Addis Ababa unable to work because of her chest pains, and was thus also unable to pay medical costs for treatment. After the government selected her as a beneficiary for Hiwot IGA program, Hiwot gave Rahawa initial capital to start a business. More specifically, Rahawa was given 6700 birr, which Rahawa used to establish a little café, selling coffee and tea, and a mini-shop. As a result of this IGA, Rahawa now makes enough money to pay her medical costs, to provide her family with three meals a day, to cover school fees and to look after her children. In the future, she hopes to establish her own cafeteria and restaurant and to be able to help those less fortunate than herself.