Volunteer for Family Development/ VOFAD provide a five day Basic Business Skill Training for 30 Women who were beneficiaries of PMTCT Project at a place called WISE. the training include some basic skills that are used to develop a small scale businesses.
BY TESFAZGI KASSA
The day started by me and Birgitte Bjerge Poulsen coming to Monarach which is the hotel she booked for the workshop. The workshp was held for two days and was intended to get co-workers of VOFAD to gain knowledge on using thier webpage and thier social media networks for the organizations promotion and marketing purpose for example with the purpose of increasing fundraising and such.
First day in the workshop
Participatory management was the tool of the workshop, which is a process that helps all participants to be active, rather than one way information. We have benne using the Windows movie maker to make effective videos for the webpage by coordinating our ideas with eachother. Issues like copyright rules, knowing the receivers which can include donors, beneficiers or people of interst should be considered while making the videos to gain a good outcome.We finalized the day by seeing each videos made by the participants and tried to give feedback on each others work to get different insights for the future.
Second day in the workshop
The day started by going through VOFAD webpage, Facebook, Instagram,Vimeo and other social media networks and how to administer these for the future use. The group adressed topics how to use the ressources for the fundrasing and marketing purpose for VOFAD. Through the day we were able to make new articles for the the webpage, pictures and videos for vofad.
“Sexuality Education at VOFAD”
By: TESFAYE DAMESA
Does sexuality education help adolescents and youths to promote awareness about HIV/AIDS?
With the fact that HIV/AIDS is sexually transmitted disease, giving sexuality education is something crucial for the sexuality of youths and adolescents. Considering this fact, VOFAD is working on reproductive health and family planning, integrating sexuality education, which potentially changing the sexual behavior of individuals particularly the youths and adolescents.
In the process of such education, youths and adolescents can share what they feel freely, know what they have to do in time of sexually challenging disease or problems occurred, they teach other peers and even their family members. This has an implication to create behavioral change among the targeted group. Currently VOFAD beliefs that, people know about HIV/AIDS, they have also awareness about it, but the difficulty is that individual behavioral change is under question. Knowing about HIV/AIDS or having awareness about HIV/AIDS is something completely different from behavioral change. The question about the change can only be addressed by sexuality education among the youths and adolescents the fact they are sexually vulnerable to HIV/AIDS; and the fact they would face behavioral change. Currently, in VOFAD, there are about 1,500 Male and Female direct beneficiaries and indirect beneficiaries: Members of the household, close relatives and neighbors of the target beneficiaries as well as members of the larger community, estimated to be about 8000.
In general, VOFAD calls all the concerned bodies and interested individuals or organization to promote behavioral change on HIV/AIDS among adolescents and youths. VOFAD also looks for somebody else to promote sexuality education in the general community.
For more information,
Website: www.vofad.org
By Kebede Jimma
Promote HIV/AIDS prevention and control focusing on women, children, adolescents and youth. Sensitize the community to access information and services on HIV/AIDS, family planning, safe motherhood, adolescent and youth sexual and reproductive health and other reproductive health components. Support and facilitate households of low socioeconomic status by enhancing income generating activities. Promoting family counseling for harmonious family relationship and tackle family disorganization etc
Promote HIV/AIDS prevention and control focusing on women, children, adolescents and youth. Sensitize the community to access information and services on HIV/AIDS, family planning, safe motherhood, adolescent and youth sexual and reproductive health and other reproductive health components. Support and facilitate households of low socioeconomic status by enhancing income generating activities
Promoting family counseling for harmonious family relationship and tackle family disorganization etc. Establish and strengthen networking and partnership with like-minded local and international organizations working on HIV/AIDS and other reproductive health components
by Dawit Bogale
I got a chance to have some additional practical experiences on social work profession.
Specific Infant Care for Specific Individual Children/SIC/ Project is one of the three projects that VOFAD is undertaking at this time. The project is providing Care and Support for HIV+ and Abandoned children by searching Volunteer local Adoptive parents.
Last week there was a family visit in each of the 18 project children and their respective adoptive parents and their family members. The family visit was so nice and it became a great opportunity to acquire an experience on how to conduct some social worker activities in a professional and based on ethical principles of the profession. .
See more about VOFAD
Friday afternoon VOFAD hosted a workshop for more than 200 people.
Through this project HIV+ orphan children are given for local adoption. Such children through the project are given the chance of growing in local family environment enjoying family love and affection.
When an orphan child from Ethiopia is chosen for international adoption it is tested for HIV/AIDS. With a positive HIV test the child’s possibility to get a mother and father is turned into survival at the local orphanage with few resources. AC International Child Support and our partner VOFAD help HIV-positive Ethiopian children find a local adoptive family.
In 2005, VOFAD turned its attention towards care and support sub-program of HIV/AIDS through a project entitled as Specific Infant Care for Specific Individual Children (SIC). Through the SIC Project orphaned and abandoned HIV positive children who disqualify for international adoption are given to volunteer local families in the form of adoption (“Gudifecha”) where they get the opportunity of growing in an environment of family love and affection. It is an on-going project that is envisaged to continue until all the target children reach age 18.
The adoptive families of the SIC Project were recruited by church leaders and church based volunteer counselors. The age of the family heads (husband and wife), the total family size and the general setup of the residential quarters were some of the criteria used for the selection of volunteer adoptive families.
Once identified, the families were given special training on HIV/AIDS, care and support to HIV victims, child growth and development etc before receiving the subject children. In some cases house improvement and maintenance had also been made in order to make the residential areas fit to the health situation of the project children.
Food, sanitary materials, day and night clothes, medical, education etc expenses of the target project children are all covered by the project. The volunteer adoptive families have taken the determination of taking the pain of bringing HIV+ orphans together with their biological children giving families love and affection. Otherwise, they all belong to low socio-economic background and cannot afford to meet the high demands of handling HIV+ children who were given to them at ages as low as 2 weeks. That is why all the needs of the children are covered through the project.
The adoptive families are being supported by the counselors of the organization as well as church based counselors on regular basis through house to house approach. Through such mechanism they are given moral and spiritual support in addition to tackling family related problems. The adoptive families also have monthly meeting together with the counselors of the organization and volunteer church based counselors to discuss timely mutual issues as well as exchange experiences. Annual refresher training has also been set on regular basis in order to update the families on HIV/AIDS and related issues.
To the best knowledge of VOFAD, the SIC Project is the only one of its kind in Ethiopia. The site of the SIC Project is Wereda 11, Nifas Silk-Lafto Sub-city, Addis Ababa City
The project has two components:
The PMTCT Component
The capacity building Component
The other component of the project is capacity building.
Regarding this:
The AYSRH Project
The Consortium of Reproductive Health Associations (CORHA) funded one year project – Addressing the Sexual and Reproductive Health/SRH Problems of Adolescent and Youth Project designed for Wereda 11 is under implementation since November/2013. The project envisages to address a total of 1000 adolescent and youth (both in and out of school).The target adolescents and youth are given awareness on sexual and reproductive health issues including HIV/ADIS, family planning, sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and other components of reproductive health. Peer to peer education is the main strategy used.
VOFAD 