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| ORGANISATION: | ASSOCIACAO SAUDE DA FAMILIA (ASF) |
| AREA: | MULTIPLE REGIONS, BRAZIL |
| GRANT PERIOD: | 2003-2007 |
| BENEFICIARIES: | 150,000 PEOPLE |
Effective grass roots prevention and care programmes has been central to Brazil's success in curbing and controlling its HIV epidemic. EJAF wanted to find a way to reach these small, community based organisations and so, in 2003, joined forces with Associacao Saude da Familia (ASF) to implement a Small Grants Programme in Brazil aimed at funding grassroots programmes.
These grants have been focused around the high prevalence Sao Paulo Area, where ASF is based, and in Fortaleza, a city in northeastern Brazil. We have funded over 25 projects so far reaching over 150,000 people. These grants, of up to £6,000, have been used to support positive people and reach marginalised groups like sex workers and their clients, men who have sex with men (MSM) and drug users, including:
- Enabling a place of refuge for positive women and their children to develop and run a profitable bakery; producing and selling around 8,000 loaves of bread each month. The fact that positive women are able to sell bread they have baked at a local market is a real breakthrough in acceptance by the local community.
- Recruiting and training former injecting drug users to become peer harm reduction agents in Sao Paulo. These harm reduction agents are able to find and relate to injecting drug users, educating them about HIV/AIDS and the dangers of sharing injecting equipment and unsafe sex. They distribute prevention kits, including sterile syringes, needles, alcohol wipes and condoms. The project has regular contact with over 500 drug users and has referred more than 250 of these to STD/HIV services or drug/alcohol treatment centres.
- Improving the profile and service quality of an HIV/AIDS information hotline in Fortaleza; including training and support for hotline operators and flyers and posters advertising the service - as illustrated by the bus advert shown on the Brazil country page.
- Producing a number of HIV/AIDS and rights publications to help spread awareness of the rights of people living with HIV amongst judges, lawyers, non-governmental organisations, government officials and positive people themselves.