TCE (Total Control of the Epidemic) project was launched on the 20th May 2014 in Butuo County Liangshan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province. The idea of the project during the 3years campaign is to achieve total control of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Butuo County among a population of 100,000 people. This is done through one-on-one, door-to-door visits to all resident villagers and reaching out to them with health education, mobilization and voluntary home-based counseling and testing. Furthermore it is done through a Passionate Network and training of local leaders and influential people who support in spreading information and mobilization work.

Health education provided by the project includes providing HIV/AIDS knowledge, basic knowledge about STI (Sexually Transmitted Infections) to villagers, mobilizing pregnant women for prenatal care and hospital delivery, providing condoms and explaining condom use to the sexually active singles and couples. To further expand the spread of HIV/AIDS information the project has come up with a new initiative to reach out to many people. The project has introduced a school program where the project staff will visit 23 local schools in Butuo to give courses about HIV/AIDS to school children and teachers. In May the project team visited all 23 schools to introduce this new initiative. Teachers in the schools welcomed the idea and are willing to work together with TCE project staff. To make the school program more effective the Field Officers were first trained on how to plan and to organize for the school programs. They were also trained on how to select topics for the lessons. After the training and initial introduction of the program to the schools, the project office staff went together with the Field officers to the schools to support them in implementing the program for the first time. During the first implementation of this initiative the project managed to provide 34 presentations at the 23 schools. From then on the school program is going very well and the field officers are visiting the schools and sharing the HIV/AIDS information, effects of drug abuse, premarital sex, and other AIDS related issues with school children. The field officers are using participatory method in which they involve the school children into discussions and role plays. This helps in spreading awareness to the children before they start indulging in activities which can ruin their future. It is also a mode of information transmission since the children share with their parents what they learn at school.


Another initiative on information dissemination planned by the project is to make audio recordings about HIV/AIDS. This will be done by recording a local person who speaks the Yi language, then give these recordings to each village leader. The recordings will be transmitted in all the villages via loudspeakers which will make it possible for everyone to listen. The recordings will be played once a week so that villagers can listen from the comfort of their homes, being able to listen and at the same time do household chores. In this way the project will be able to reach out to many new people and it will help serve as a reminder to those who already learned about the facts, helping them to stick to their decision of not contracting or infecting others with HIV/AIDS.

A Field Officer giving a lesson at a school


HIV/AIDS training for the villagers

A fild officer is doing door-to-door visit

A man-only HIV/AIDS training given by Field Officer

This project is supported by EU and HPP Baltic
 
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Content herein reflects the views of the authors and not necessarily those of the European Union, Europe Aid or the Delegation of the European Union to the People's Republic of China.