An Action Group of the AIDS Community is reviewing the draft report on the Salvation Army’s HIV programs, which are based on principles of community counselling.

The Salvation Army’s HIV programs are based on principles of community counseling. It has been using a facilitation team approach to help the local Salvation Army units to begin responding to HIV, through clinics, social institutions, and churches. The Salvation Army believes communities have the capacity to respond to their concerns and that their staff need to facilitate this capacity.
 
Solution Exchange AIDS Community linked the AIDS Constellation with the head of Samraksha Sanghamitra Iyengar, who championed an action group on “community response to HIV.” This helped move the AIDS Competence Process (ACP) forward. Bobby Zachariah from the Salvation Army then joined the Constellation for AIDS Competence set up by UNAIDS to nurture and facilitate community level responses to HIV.

Sanghamitra Iyengar, served a champion for the Community Response to HIV breakaway discussion held during the AIDS Community Visioning Workshop in September 2006. The breakaway discussion was followed by a discussion on Solution Exchange on this issue.

Then a team comprising of proponents and skeptics of the AIDS Competence concept visited Karnataka and Aizawl in September 2007 to document the process, and drafted a draft report based on their experiences. The final report is being finalized and will be released soon.

Action group meeting on “Community Response to HIV” (photo courtesy CHAN)