fromAIDS2aid

Name of the activity: fromAIDS2aid

Country/NMO: Russian Federation (HCCM)

Program: HIV/AIDS & Other STIs

Type of the activity: Campaign. Combination of education and advocacy. Campaigns create awareness in society about a certain topic (education aspect) and try to funnel this awareness into pressure on the decision makers to adapt policies accordingly (advocacy aspect).

General description:

fromAIDS2aid is a project created to raise awareness of STIs and HIV, where medical students learn to speak about HIV with adolescents and children correctly. The main goal is to raise awareness of STIs and HIV and thereby break stigma. Because the more you know about the problem, the less you are afraid of it.

Focus area:

Prevention of all STIs or are specific STIs

Problem statement:

People do not perceive sex as a natural process in our life as eating or breathing. People are not aware what lack of protection of their health can lead to. We do not talk out loud about it. The consequences of this are not forced to wait: the STD statistics are still disappointing and the prevalence of HIV in Russia has reached epidemic proportions.

Target groups:

General population, Medical students, Healthcare Students, Other Students, Children, Youth

Beneficiaries:

General population, Medical students, Healthcare Students, Other Students, Doctors, Other health professionals, Children, Youth, all people who suffer from stigma

Objectives and indicators of success:

1. raising awareness about STI and HIV and AIDS –

decrease in incidence STI, HIV, AIDS, breaking stigma

2. giving an understanding of specific terms – know what the difference between HIV and AIDS, breaking stigma

3. changing the behavior of adolescents – decrease in incidence STI, HIV, AIDS in teenagers group

Methodology:

We organized a group of lecturers for lecturing in schools and colleges. The lecturers are medical students of 3, 4, 5 courses. They give lectures on HIV and STIs, about the etiology, pathogenesis, ways of transmission and methods of prevention. But it is not enough just to talk about HIV. It’s important to talk about it correctly. Therefore, all the lecturers are trained in the Samara Regional Center for Prevention under the undervision of the chief Dr. Muravets. He teaches lecturers how to speak, how to communicate with children and teenagers, how to talk about HIV correctly.

Plans for evaluation:

The main way to assess the effectiveness of our work is to survey students. We carry out knowledge control before a lecture, after a lecture on the same day and after three months.

The last survey, which was conducted in 10 colleges in December 2018 after lectures in October 2018, showed that students respond 40% more correctly to the questions asked.