Transcript Community mobilization strategy for 2010

Gracia Violeta Ross
More visibility
 Keep targeting AIDS key leaders from the
global south to speak on TB-HIV issues
 Make TB topics understable for PLHA (most
people just do not know)
 Document successfull community driven
experiences (e.g. Mexico)
 TB-PLHA as speakers in major TB
conferences’s but in main sessions
More Training
 Train PLHA with “the basics” of TB advocacy, if it does
not exist completely, we will invent
 Train other community members, those who are also
at risk of TB who could create a safer environment for
PLHA
 Train biomedical sector on “the basics” of community
involvement, such as listening and horizontal
approches
TB-Transformation
 What can we learn from other health achievments of
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the XX and XXI centuries that can benefit the TB
response?
Maybe we need to change the language, do people
understand the difference among ”TB control” and
“TB patient control”?
Focus on the PERSON not the bacilo
Trust the community for TB control, they want to help
Partnership of persons with TB with health providers
in a horizontal way
Involve younger people and more women and you will
see we will rock TB response
EMPOWERMENT
 Why is the TB so called “patient” so patient?
 Need urgent training and awarness on Human Rights
of patients
 TB is no longer the property of one sector, other
sectors have to take responsability, we have to make
them accountable, this includes, political leaders,
pharmaceutical companies, UN agencies, health
clinics, persons affected AND PLHA
 Develop our own vision of TB response as a
complement to tradional practices
 Persons with TB are part of the solution not the
problem
Deal with TB stigma
 What is fueling the stigma around persons wit TB?
 Is it because it is contagiuos?
 Do people ignore that is curable?
 Is not a sexy disease?
 Why do people run away from services when they are
coughing?
 Can it be that the TB awarness messages given to
community fuel stigma?
Why I never got TB in a country
with TB prevalence (Bolivia)?
 Tested for HIV right after being infected
 Treated for HIV inmediately
 Befor ART, for 1 year, automatically under isionazid and
cotrimoxazol profilaxis, peer counselors explained to me
the benefits, cheap medications provided by peruvian
government while I studied master course in Lima. NEVER
GOT ANY OPPORTUNISTIC INFECTION
 Since my HIV test, I learnt about my infection. First test to
take: X rays, not suggested by doctors, but understood by
myself after reading about the risk of oportunistic
infections
 Trained my family so they would not add risk to my space,
including preventing all types of flu, safe food, TB
prevention, etc.
LISTEN TO PEOPLE
 What is needed and what will work? People know, if
we only ask them and listen, they will tell us
 Is not a Geneva paper that will transform TB-HIV
services but what people and communities do locally
 Benefit from social science to develop community
driven responses
 Thokozile from South Africa
Why I need to learn about TB?
 Many AIDS activist have not been personally affected
by TB, thus they don’t imagine the burden
 If some information was provided to them in a
dedicated way (Hayleyesus for me) they will
understand and take responsability. There is progress
on this in some african communities
 “We are affected by TB, my community is dying of TB”
 AIDS no more in competition with other health
problems