Community Support for Women and Children
Addressing the needs of women and children affected by HIV and AIDS: the “Community Support for Women and Children in Malawi” project
The goal of this project is to reduce HIV-related stigma and discrimination amongst poor and marginalised people and to strengthen the role of civil society in the national response to HIV&AIDS.
- It focuses primarily on building the capacity of our partner, the Malawi Network of AIDS Services Organisations (MANASO), so that it can fulfil its role as the civil society HIV&AIDS coordinating network.
- The project also targets the member organisations of MANASO, by supporting MANASO in training them in right based approaches to development, gender sensitivity of their work, tackling the needs of orphans and other vulnerable children.
- MANASO is one of the partners which has been most successful in piloting the Civil Society Monitoring of health services, which has been initiated with them in this project.
- Through this project, MANASO has also piloted the Agricultural Skills Transfer Model in order to address the specific needs of women and vulnerable children and reduce their vulnerability to AIDS. This pilot has lead to considerable improvement in food security for the beneficiaries (76% of them women), and we will look into scaling up this methodology in our other programmes.
Malawi Network of AIDS Service Organisations (MANASO) MANASO was formed in 1996 as a national umbrella for over 400 AIDS service organisations, comprising community-based organisations, national and international NGOs and faith-based organisations. From the outset MANASO’s remit included working with government; coordination and avoidance of duplication; elevating the voice of community organisations and their users; facilitation of training; networking and exchange; and resource mobilisation and distribution within the AIDS service organisation sector.
[1] Manga in Chichewa means to build or develop.