Our Sectors
HIV/AIDS
Programs designed to address HIV/AIDS remain largely dominated by medical solutions, home-based care, counselling and prevention. Although these are essential to prevent the spread of the disease, they do not address the nutritional requirements of households living with HIV/AIDS or their need to earn an adequate income.
At CHF, our objective is to help rural HIV/AIDS-affected households and communities improve their resilience over the short and long term by increasing their income, helping them grow more and better food, and increasing their ownership over productive assets. Our target population includes all people affected or infected by HIV/AIDS, with a special emphasis on women, children and elders, who often disproportionately suffer the social and economic impacts of the pandemic.
CHF has been assisting HIV/AIDS-affected households using its Sustainable Livelihoods Approach (SLA). We believe that improving livelihoods of HIV/AIDS-affected households is essential for developing the resilience required to tackle the monumental challenges imposed by the disease. Higher income and better quality of food help vulnerable groups improve their nutrition and health, fight opportunistic infections associated with AIDS and ultimately live longer and healthier lives. Recognizing the importance of prevention, our projects also typically include awareness raising workshops and interventions aimed at fighting stigma associated with the disease.
Examples of CHF HIV/AIDS projects:
In the Strengthening Community Responses to HIV/AIDS through Livelihoods Initiatives project in Kenya, CHF is assisting vulnerable households in the Thika and Maragua districts of the Central Province to achieve self-sufficiency. Supporting its local AIDS service partner to integrate sustainable livelihoods into its programming, CHF is working to provide alternative sources of income and to improve food production for a population predominantly dependent on casual labour and contract farming for their livelihoods.
Zimbabwe is a country that has greatly suffered from the HIV/AIDS pandemic. In its Households and Communities Living with HIV/AIDS Taking Charge of Their Livelihoods project, CHF worked in a highly affected region where people were unable to cultivate their land efficiently because of the lack of labour and money for necessary items such as seeds. The project developed and sustained income generating initiatives, improved nutrition and food security, mitigated the impacts of HIV/AIDS on the most vulnerable households and improved support for community-based HIV/AIDS related initiatives.
