IBIS in Namibia

IBIS is entering its final year of engagement in Namibia in 2010. The last of its southern African projects is Yelula/U-khâi, an Alliance2015 project implemented by IBIS, HIVOS, People in Need, and Namibia’s Leagal Assistance Centre, with funding from the EU. The Yelula/U-khâi Project (meaning “lift up” in the Oshivambo and Koekoegowab languages) was implemented to support community based responses to HIV and AIDS in 5 regions of Namibia.

The project focuses on building and supporting community-level responses to HIV and AIDS, recognised as one of the main drivers of poverty and injustice in Southern Africa. Working hand in hand with constituency and regional government AIDS co-ordinating committees, the project support self help groups of people living with and directly affected by HIV and AIDS to address issues of stigma and discrimination, enhance voice and agency, and address pressing issues in their communities around HIV and AIDS and orphans and vulnerable children. The project runs until August 2010, and is currently developing a model for scaling up this kind of support.
For more information, http://www.yelula.com/

IBIS’s HIV and AIDS thematic programme in Namibia has given birth to a local entitity. Positive Vibes is a newly registered Namibian trust that provides training and facilitation services that promote attitude and behaviour change – from personal HIV-prevention and treatment adherence through to collective challenging of stigma and discrimination within communities and workplaces. They do this through their “Inside-Out” process; a combination of interpersonal and mass communication methods and tools that enable participants – in particular groups of adults and children living with and directly affected by HIV – to address HIV in their lives, and for this greater personal awareness to become a catalyst for addressing HIV and AIDS within their families, communities and workplaces.
For more information, http://www.positivevibes.org/index.html