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The Children's AIDS Fund (CAF) has been involved in both domestic and global programs since the late 1980s. CAF’s global strategy is to build the capacity of in-country grassroots organizations to meet the needs of their communities. CAF builds partnerships by identifying in-country groups already involved in effective activities and initiatives consistent with CAF’s program priorities.
CAF Programs and Partners in Malawi
St. Gabriel’s Hospital is a Catholic mission hospital founded in 1959, located in the Lilongwe district approximately 60 kilometers from the Lilongwe, Malawi’s capital city. The hospital provides both inpatient and outpatient care for a rural population serving a catchment area of 700 villages and approximately 200,000 people.
In 2002 CAF provided seed funds for a multi-phased project focused on community education and outreach, preventing mother to child transmission through perinatal HIV screening, a post-partum antiretroviral treatment program using mother’s helpers as adherence monitors, in addition the program focuses on HIV screening and treatment for spouses of the new mothers. This is a collaborative project between St. Gabriel’s Hospital, the University of Maryland’s Institute for Human Virology in Baltimore (a team led by Dr. Robert R. Redfield) and CAF.
Through its community education and mobilization efforts, St. Gabriel’s Hospital has transformed a population where stigma was the norm into a compassionate supporting and caring community. Approximately 600 volunteers actively participate in 20 Village AIDS Committees that actively work to educate those in the 700 villages in St. Gabriel’s catchment area to HIV/AIDS prevention and the importance of diagnosis.
The effort started in 2002 has resulted in HIV infected and affected families openly organizing themselves in associations of people living with HIV/AIDS with the support of community leaders. As a result of this educational effort, St. Gabriel’s has seen a high uptake (90.3%) of mothers attending antenatal clinics volunteering for HIV counseling and testing. In 2004, of the 4,721 women who attended perinatal clinics, 4,267 were tested. Of those, 156 tested HIV-positive, a prevalence rate of 3.9%.