August 11-13, 2009

Right2Life
Focal Persons
Training

Training
Focal Persons
for
Workplace
Peer
Education in
Nairobi Kenya
 Right2Life 3 Day Focal Persons Workshop
11 August 2009

Session Facilitators: Kennedy Mambo (VSO Jitolee), Martin (NOPE), and Sly (NOPE)

Participants’ expectations:

 Learn more about HIV/AIDS

 Differentiate b/n normal PE and Workplace PE
 Acquire knowledge on BCC
 How participants can influence the formulation of HIV/AIDS WPP
 Different strategies to establish CWPPE
 Share experiences of what participants do
 Role of Focal Persons
 Making friends, sharing, and learning
 R2L what’s next?

Overview of VSO Jitolee R2L Program

The day began with a comprehensive explanation of the VSO Federation and Program Offices.
Additionally information was provided related to the role that the organization and volunteers play
in development in various parts of the world. VSO Jitolee’s work focus on Secure Livelihoods,
Disability, HIV/AIDS, and National Volunteering. The partnership is defined by the presence of
volunteers.

R2L program goal is to increase capacity of partner organizations in regards to HIV/AIDS. Program is
implemented in 10 other countries. Each country is unique in the challenges that it encounters with
HIV/AIDS. Kenyan approach as facilitated by VSO Jitolee and NOPE is centered on Workplace
education. Staff education on HIV issues is critical in combating the HIV problem. Thus a workplace
approach has been developed since ultimately each member of the partner organizations are
members of the larger community.

Funds have been allocated by the Royal Dutch Government (Netherlands). Support has been
provided by VSONL and implemented by the National Organization of Peer Educators (NOPE). NOPE
is primarily responsible with facilitation of trainings and the provision of professional Peer Educator
Trainers. The R2L program activities meet Objective 1 of the HIV PAP program of VSOJ.

Scheduled 2009 R2L Activities

 Baseline KAP survey

 Management sensitization
 Training of FP and PE’s
 Development of HIV/AIDS committees
 HIV/AIDS WP policy development
 Development of IEC materials for branding and publicity
 Linkages to other HIV/AIDS Service organizations and businesses with WP Programs

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  Exchange visits

7 WP partners during the 1st year

8 WP partners during 2nd year

12 WP partners during 3rd year: 2009-10

Participating organizations in attendance:

• Help Self Help Centre

• Hope World Wide Kenya
• International Child Support
• Maridadi Fabrics
• Moving The Goal Posts
• National Council for Persons with Disability
• Ngolanya Community Aid Programme
• Rachel’s Development Programme
• Strengthening Community Partnership and Empowerment
• United Disabled Persons of Kenya
• Western Education, Advocacy and Empowerment Programme
• Youth Alive! Kenya

Ongoing Objectives include:

Sustainability

Strengthening reporting

Reporting & documentation

Increased linkages with the government, local resources, and service providers…goal is to do
refresher trainings at organizations, advocate for WP budget allocations…

Activities:
Focal Persons Group Discussions – Broken down within 3 separate groups

Why HIV is an organizational concern – Participants agreed on the following items:

 Staff turnover due to deaths; medication and inability to work as a result of discrimination
and stigma
 Organization productivity is low due to poor heath and absenteeism
 Organizational costs
 Increase in the number of OVC’s
 Reduce the risk of infection among staff who have relationships within the organizations
 Serves as a role model to the community

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  Sensitize staff on the dangers and consequences of HIV
 Lack of policies to protect infected and non-infected persons in the organization

Challenges encountered while implementing HIV/AIDS program in individual organizations:

 Reluctance in discussing HIV

 Misuse of ARV’s (in specific areas HIV + people are accessing ARV and continuing to engage
in high-risk/unprotected behaviours)
 Overdependence syndrome
 Cultural and religious differences
 Self denial
 Stigma and discrimination
 Lack of management support in terms of finances
 Lack of confidentiality
 Poor integration of HIV WPP with other programs
 Lack of disclosure
 Lack of clear HIV policy
 Lack of support systems for PLWA
 Lack of MIPA involvement in policy implementation/formulation

Overview of HIV/AIDS - Current situation and trends:

 Prevalence rates has increased among married couples

 The number of HIV infections have increased
 Stigma in the workplace has reduced
 More people are seeking VCT and other healthcare services
 More people are disclosing their status
 Highest prevalence rates has shifted from Nyanza to eastern province
 Campaign on VMMC
 Most PMTCT clients’ children are HIV –
 Despite awareness, prevalence rate is still high
 Intensive campaigns are being conducted to increase awareness
 Unprotected sex is high because of the use of E-CPILL
 Increase in OVC’s
 Increase in sex education among youth focused advertisements
 KAIS report indicates that prevalence rates are high among women
 Fishing community has been added to the MARPS
 Women access VCT more than men
 VCT – Vaa Condom Tuende!!

Overview of KAP survey

The KAP survey provided participants of the specifics of the survey process. Moreover specific
survey questions were discussed, e.g. “An average of 10% of respondents think AIDS is not a fatal
disease; 86.7% knew of someone living with HIV and 88.9% know someone who has died as a result
of HIV; a total of 29 respondents are living with HIV”. The fact that participants disclosed their HIV +

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status may indicate that there is some reduction in the prevalence of stigma. “73.5 people have
used condoms, whereas the rest have not. Participants have concluded that there may be some
cultural and religious beliefs/norms which may be preventing individuals from using condoms.
Facilitator countered that some individuals may not know where to access condoms and or may not
know how to correctly utilize the condoms. There are some issues that relate to accessibility for
physically disabled persons – i.e. disabled people may not be able to read the condom instructions
because they are blind; a person with no arms may not be open the condom wrapper etc.
Participant referenced a study by the University of Liverpool, which indicated that Europeans have
more sexual partners than that individuals in Africa, yet HIV rates in Africa are much higher than that
in Europe…why is that?

“50% of respondents noted that their organization has an HIV policy, 32.6% said that there was no
policy, while 17.4% are not sure.” This indicates a gap in organizational communication regarding
HIV/AIDS policy dissemination. Policy should give support for staff members and also inform them
about the policy, in the same manner, for example, that a HR policy is disseminated. Potential gaps
may be a result of the policy development, whereby all members of staff are aware of the policy.
Participant suggested that some people that completed the survey may have provided false and or
distorted information – participant also inquired how was this potential considered by the surveyors.
Facilitator suggested that the presence of the surveyors and the provision of specific instructions to
the respondents created an environment which promoted quality information on the survey.

NOPE – What is a Focal Person?

Participants’ responses:

1. Person’s identified by their organization to head the HIV/AIDS sensitization program and
disseminate the information to the rest
2. People with 1st hand information about the program or organization
3. Link persons
4. Somebody who has a central coordinating role

NOPE – Focal Person definition: “People charged with the responsibility of handling both social and
health concerns of the employees”.

Examples of social concerns elicited from the participants - Social concerns of an employee can
include, how employees relate to one another in the workplace, sexual harassment issues. Health
concerns can include employee sponsored health screenings etc. Facilitators asked the participants
to consider the expenses associated with employee sponsored health screenings and the potential
impact on the morale of employees.

Participants broke off into 4 groups with the roles defined as - Focal Person/Coordinator and Peers:
Goal is to develop a Peer Education session utilizing role playing to facilitate a session on a specific
topic to be determined by the group.

Group 1: Decided to present on the proper techniques for condom use. One presenter conducted
the mock session. Participants provided feedback on the peer educators overall presentation.

Group 2: Presented a short informational session on faithfulness. Participants provided feedback.

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Group 3: PE provided information on condoms: Advantages – prevent pregnancies, cheap, promote
safe sex. PE also provided detailed on the proper use of a male condom. Participants provided
feedback

Group 4: Provided information on the cultural beliefs and practices that encourage the spread of
HIV/AIDS: wife inheritance, forced marriages, sleeping w/ virgins cures HIV, circumcision, seasonal
sex. Participants provided feedback.

The role of the Focal Person/coordinator is one that is supervisory, motivating, training, identifying
and recruitment, capacity building, link between PE, peers and management, documentation, and
provision of IEC materials.

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 Elements of a Comprehensive HIV/AIDS Work-Place Program

Commitment:
Goodwill of
Mgmnt;
Recognition of HIV
Foster as an Organizational
concern HIV/AIDS Work-
Ownership: Place Policy:
Being Objective,
Focused, Motivate, Development and
Setting Goals, dissemination
Support, Activities

Management
Documentation Sensitization:
Reporting and Involvement w/ PE
Feedback and Awareness of
Ongoing Activities

Information Coordination
and Education Systems:
Activities: Recruitment;
Outreaches, Coordinators; Task
Conferencess, and Forces: Committees;
Exchange Programs Zone Leaders; PE's

Employee
Wellness: General Capacity
Wellness and Free Building: Training
Medical Check-ups
Linkages and
Networking:
Outreaches &
Exchange Programs

Elements of a Comprehensive HIV/AIDS WP Program

source: National Organization of Peer Educators (NOPE)

Close of the 1st Day Session, - Participants provided an evaluation form for the days activities.
Moreover there was an assignment for the evening: “Discuss 5 components of developing a
workplace HIV/AIDS program”

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Day 2: 12August2009

Defining the role of Peers:

What is a Peer: Someone similar to others by age, character, behaviour and they have common
goals.

NOPE Facilitator asks questions regarding how male peers and female peers interact with one
another. Further, the facilitator expands the discussion and explains that Peer Education is a process
where similar people learn together in an informal way. Moreover, the facilitator asks the
participants what they believe a Peer Educator embodies. The group gave their ideas and
suggestions on how they view a Peer Educator, and concluded with a definition of a Peer Educator.
Facilitator broke the participants off in groups to engage in discussions on quality off effective per
educators and roles and responsibilities of a peer educator, criteria for selecting peer educators, and
anticipated challenges in implementing peer education programs.

“Focal persons can influence change by disseminating information to individuals”.

Presentation by Mark Rabudi from NOPE

Mark provided information of the implementation processes. Documenting the program is
determined on what the focal persons contribute and how their contributions will affect future
programming. A brief discussion was
held regarding ideas about the
process of selecting and or appointing
a Steering Committee. Mark referred
the participants back to the diagram
related to the Elements of a
Comprehensive HIV/AIDS Work-Place
Program. Moreover, he suggested
that there was a critical element
missing from the Elements diagram –
particularly, issues related to the
Foundation: most specifically
Structure, Systems Analysis, and
Content Analysis.

Coordinators are expected to look at

benchmarks then decide to move
forward. The rationale behind having
a committee: Planning purposes
(session activities, checks and
balances, commitment and
ownership), differing perspectives and
ideas amongst colleagues, advocacy,
and policy formation. The point was accentuated that the Committee reports to the Focal Person.

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Participants broke into three groups, addressed the following issues, and raised the documented
points of concern:

1. Challenges of forming a Committee: People might ask for allowances, time constraint, la ck
of commitment, workforce might be hindrance, budgetary constraints, lack of management
support, decision making, lack of clear roles,
HIV/AIDS fatigue, cultural and religious views, staff
turnover, lack of proper integration with other
programs
2. Criteria for forming a Steering Committee: Select
members from diff organization departments, size of
committee vss. Number of staff, gender balance,
availability of committee members, knowledge and
skills of issues at hand, cultural religious beliefs and
practices, open selection process, neural members,
good decision makers, equal geographic
representation of members
3. Roles and Responsibilities of the Committee:
Advocacy for lobbying funds, support of the
implementation, policy formulation/sensitization,
planning, supervision, fostering ownership,
addressing challenges, advisory roles, monitoring
and evaluation, recruitment of peer educators,
documentation and reporting, sourcing for IEC
materials, designing communication messages

After the participants provided information, the presenter provided informal stories regarding
workplace provision of condoms and the lack of financial resources for some individuals in society to
afford to purchase condoms.

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 Relationship between Organizational Stakeholders

Board & Top

Management

Task
Force
HIV/AIDS
Committees Focal Persons

Session Break

Facilitator asked participants to assess the different level of HIV/AIDS risks. Placards were placed on
various part of the wall and participants are requested to outline different risk factors between No,
Low, Medium, and High Risk activities. Participants noted the following:

Risk Levels

LOW: Assisting infected person, sharing sharp objects like nail

cutters with an infected person, giving injections to persons,
late office assignments, safer sex, late office assignments,
handling improperly disposed materials like used condoms,
hugging, pecks/greetings

MEDIUM: Assisting during small accidents at work, casual sex,

attempted rape, ignorance on better use of condoms, sexual
harassment, being sent out for fieldwork for long periods away
from your partner for long periods of time, drinking water from
the same bottle of an infected person.

HIGH: Sexual harassment, unprotected sex with colleagues,

sharing needles and razors, close interaction with a TB patient,
promiscuous habits, sexual harassment leading to rape,
lesbianism, multiple sexual partners, needle prick.

Participants while being led by the Facilitators discussed all of

the actions associated with the three risks levels. Some of the

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actions were removed from one category and moved to more appropriate categories.

Evaluations were provided to participants towards the end of the day with instructions detailing the
proper way to complete. Instructions were also provided on how to complete transport receipt
form and travel expenses.

End of Day 2

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Day Three:

M/E:

E&R

PPME: Participatory Planning Monitoring & Evaluation

OVI: Objective Verifiable Indicators

Logframe:

Facilitator Ken Mambo prompted Participants to define the following:

 Goal
 Objectives
 Strategies
 Activities: Informed by strategies and activities (ex. Magnet Theater)
 Input: Targets, Resources (time, money, supplies, IEC etc)
 Output: 30 focal persons trained
 Outcomes: Immediate results that come after an activity
 Impacts
 Indicators: Quantitative (ex. Increasing number of visits to VCT centres)/ Qualititative
 Inclusions: Bringing about meaningful participation

Discussions were developed regarding why monitoring should be conducted. Additionally

discussions were held regarding outputs, e.g. the immediate results, and outcomes

Facilitator provided overview of adult learning – often times there is no “wrong answer”.

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