Baseline on Gender based violence, HIV and AIDS

Summary of the evaluation :

• Title of the evaluation report: Baseline on Gender based violence, HIV and AIDS
• Background: Baseline needed in order to establish targets for SOIs
• Purpose/objective: Establish realistic indicators and targets for our programs in GBV, HIV and AIDS
• Methodology: Questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, group-meetings.

Our contributions are placed at three levels:  At the organizational, program and implementation level

1) At the Organizational level

• All NCA’s partners are members of CICA. However, CICA is run more lie an organization than as a network. To achieve the desired outcome it is crucial to strengthen the capacity of CICA to work as a network.  There is a potential to involve more actors and thus influence the work and messages such as the Fraternal Association of Pastors, Group of Women Theologians, and the theological training institutes of CICA and IEBA. Gaining the commitment of the members of CICA can be a guarantee of changes in attitudes, behaviors and practices of religious leaders and their constituents / members. Several studies report that in order to create a change in behavior and practices in society it is necessary that at least 30% of organizations are involved.  CICA has 22 member churches and institutions.  If 30% of new members which occupy new posts embrace these new attitudes and behaviors this will be a significant contribution to change because "thoughts become actions, actions become habits, habits become our character and character becomes destiny".  The more religious leaders we engage in this process, the greater the chances of success.
• Strengthening the capacity of CICA to reinforce and where necessary develop the capacity of its members to question power relations, working 'masculinity as a key element in increasing vulnerability to HIV AIDS, Gender Based Violence; early marriages; abuse and rape of young children and women is key.
• The new concepts related to the mitigation of HIV and AIDS and response to GBV must be an integral part of capacity building processes and in developing leadership and management skills for leaders and staff of partner organizations.
• Preaching and counseling are the key instruments used by the church and faith-based organizations to reach out to constituents and communities in order to spread beliefs, values ​​and messages, whether fair or not. In the process of organizational development of CICA member organizations who are committed to change, it is recommended to work on core values ​​and principles that guide the intervention so that they develop a new religious paradigm in which men and women have the same value in society.
• The organizational strengthening of members is essential to increase knowledge and human and technical capacity for program management. The actions taken are directly connected with and contribute to the achievement of desired results. This also involves strengthening the structures of the partner organizations which in most cases struggle with limited resources and staff.
• As duty bearers, the church and FBOs have with this strategy the opportunity to strengthen their internal capacity and external advocacy on those issues related to providing a better quality of life of people affected by HIV and survivors of gender based violence. Some of the changes which one should lobby for may include:

-      Secure access to ARV. In Angola there are still few hospitals where people have secure access to ARV. This poor accessibility contributes to the high number of persons who stop taking the medication (the distance, rupture of stocks etc. are some of the challenges that needs to be overcome);

-      Extension of networks that include public health services and specialized drugs for people infected by HIV and AIDS and survivors of gender based violence. This type of intervention may be linked to a social monitoring program which not only keeps track of planned outcomes but also on how it will reduce the distances between the community and health centers, using the WHO-approved standards;

-      Home based care including psycho-social support. Most patients are cared for by their families and friends. Some NCA partners do home monitoring. Currently this is based on providing soap, some food and moral support. Advocacy work in this area could lead to the institutionalization of home-based care kits which would ensure better patient comfort and increased protection of caretakers. The home monitoring can be a coordinated action with the health centers to ensure that the kit also includes medical equipment (painkillers, antibiotics, bandages, tincture, bandages, antiseptics, cotton) and non-medical equipment (tarp, gloves, buckets, basins, soap, plastic bags etc. to treat the waste). The process of monitoring and home based care relies on training of personnel in the techniques of first aid and psycho-social follow-up.

-      Protection of survivors of GBV. The law on Domestic Violence recently passed provides this service, however it is not yet defined where resources to ensure that service will come from. The faith-based organizations can join the movement to fight for a life without violence by advocating for a specific budget on local and national levels to ensure the rights for survivors of GBV as per the law 25/11.

2) Program level

• Exploit and maximize the mobilization capacity of partner organizations to promote community-level organizational processes to work the issue of HIV and GBV - using participatory methodologies and processes that help identify indicators for HIV or GBV for each group / church / organization who intends to work with these issues in order to increase the skills of negotiation, organization of members and to influence the messages towards a theology of liberation - where all people have the same rights and value regardless of their sex, age, religion, ethnicity and health status.
• Female and youth leadership - the organizational processes that aim at giving more space to women and youth must be accompanied by a formative process and empowerment in order to increase their efficiency to participate in decision-making spaces, strengthening the ability of women and girls infected and affected and survivors of GBV to better articulate their needs and define strategies to reach them, provide opportunities for greater dialogue between the youth - the future of tomorrow - and the generation that now leads the destinies of churches and FBOs.

While HIV and AIDS is treated well or badly - there is a silence in respect to GBV in churches. The Tamar Campaign, for example, is a unique opportunity to address the triangle of HIV - GBV - poverty. NCA partners already hold skills and capacity for interventions to facilitate the return of this campaign, you only need an internal advocacy work for Bible studies for the next two years to use this campaign as a vehicle for promoting dialogue and action around these issues. This work must be accompanied with specific training on dealing with the issue of GBV under the legal point of view, health and self-esteem and survivors.

3) Implementation level:

To maximize results on the two levels mentioned above, it is important that NCA itself strengthens its ability to facilitate the implementation of the program more actively in order to draw from the activities and expertise of the entire team to different parts of the program. The GBV and HIV programs will only be successful if they are institutionalized in all program interventions of NCA.

Experiences already exist in the formation of community groups be it for water and sanitation or for social monitoring. This is a good starting point to introduce new measures that will allow these women and men working together to question the power relations in their work and their family environment.

This process includes looking at NCA staff’s practices related to monitoring; the process of organizational development and facilitation of capacity development to help manage the program. At the same time NCA need to facilitate the growth and development of the partner organizations.

Therefore, this third level has to do with the creation of an institutional environment which will permit changes to occur, allowing individual and collective processes that will, among other things, lead to better documentation of the actions in progress and changes and effects occurring with regards to the interventions. It is therefore recommended that NCA revise the following internal procedures and processes:

(I) Monitoring and evaluation - will be necessary to develop the ability to better document monitoring processes. Currently the documentation has to do with the level of activities and number of participants disaggregated by sex - however, the strategy requires a level of monitoring that shows results and effects of activities. Thus, in addition to the existing systems it will be important to consider the use of life stories written by NCA or partner staff or by the persons involved; reflective reports that document the processes undertaken to achieve the results, case studies related to specific interventions and the use of photographs can also help. In collecting the material the development of small scripts is recommended that will help document the actions taken, analyze the results and / or effects achieved, reflect on the changes visible, expected and unexpected, draw lessons about what happened and find mechanisms to draw upon all this influence in making the plans for the next phase. If this process is done in a participatory manner, it can help the partner organizations to understand their true role. Looking at monitoring as a way of learning, it is recommended that NCA encourage partner organizations to make internal evaluations of their work using the same principles of monitoring. NCA already has a practice of meeting with the partners regularly and can easily combine this practice with peer pressure (peer group pressure) to maximize learning among partners and within the organization.

• Comments from the organisation, if any: Indicators and targets for SOIs will be revised in 2012 for according to the findings and recommendations in the baseline report.