How has the Plan engaged civil society?

1. Global Plan to Eliminate New HIV Infections in Children by 2015 and Keep their Mothers Alive and HealthyThe Role of Civil Society and Faith-Based Organizationsat Consultation on Scaling up the Engagement of Faith-based Organizations in the the Implementation of the Global Planby Rev. Msgr. Robert J. Vitillo, Caritas Internationalis, Lusaka,26 February 2013

2. How has the Plan engaged civil society? • In recognition of the important work of Civil Society, four representatives have been appointed to serve on the Global Steering Group (GSG) for the Plan: Lucy Wambura of The National Empowerment Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS in Kenya (NEPHAK), Beri Hull of International Community of Women with HIV/AIDS (ICW), Mitch Besser of mothers2mothers (m2m), Monsignor Robert J. Vitillo of Caritas Internationalis (CI). • The GSG monitors the implementation of the Plan and monitor progress towards reaching its goals. • These Civil Society Representatives launched a survey, in collaboration with International Treatment Preparedness Coalition (ITPC), in order to learn how civil society already is engaged in the elimination of mother-to-child transmission and to know how it wishes to promote the Global Plan.

3. Role of Civil Society in promoting and implementing the Global Plan For civil society, including networks of women living with HIV, the actions are as follows: • Sensitize leaders at all levels to support evidence-informed decision-making. • Hold governments and others accountable through constructive advocacy and partnerships. • Provide leadership and innovation in programme delivery, for example through task shifting and task sharing. • Strengthen the engagement of women living with HIV, men and couples in HIV prevention and treatment programmes for mothers and children and ensure that programmatic approaches do not unduly burden women or inadvertently exclude children. • Fully participate in the design and implementation of programmes and monitoring and accountability structures to deliver HIV prevention and treatment services—and provided with funding commensurate with their service delivery. • Establish community accountability structures for feedback, communication and problem-solving between women’s groups, local communities, community-based and faith-based service providers and state-provided health systems personnel. • Unify global, regional and national civil society and activist groups in their advocacy to demand concrete action by governments, donors and international agencies to support women and communities.

4. The Religious Community working toward Zero New Infections among Children • Support women to avoid HIV infection. A mother free from HIV cannot pass on the virus to her children. • Provide information in local faith communities encouraging and supporting couples to go together for HIV testing. • Support access to antenatal care and HIV testing and counselling for pregnant women and provide linkages to related health facilities and care. • Strengthen programmes to prevent new HIV infections in children––in line with national policies and protocols––in religiously affiliated hospitals and medical centres, particularly in rural areas. • Ensure coordination with national health systems addressing HIV prevention and treatment to enable pregnant women living with HIV to access the best possible antiretroviral therapy—for their own health and for their baby’s health.

5. Caritas Internationalis “HAART for Children” Campaign “HAART” = Highly Active Retroviral Treatment but also requires “HEART”

6. “Prescription for Life”: Children taking action on behalf of other children – those living with HIV or with HIV/TB co-infection letter-writing action by children to governments and to a target group of pharmaceutical companies

7. Getting to Zero: CRS efforts to Strengthen Male Involvement in PMTCT Through AIDS Relief Programmes, in such countries as Kenya, Zambia, and Nigeria, Catholic Relief Services, Catholic Medical Mission Board, and other Catholic Church-related organizations, work to increase awareness about the need for male involvement in HIV programming and to attract and retain men in its programming, including PMTCT, by: • Promotion of voluntary medical male circumcision • Formation of support groups specifically for men • Strengthening couple relationships and encouraging testing as a couple (cf., The Faithful House: A couple’s Guide to PMTCT) • Involving men in antenatal care and PMTCT services – including shorter waiting periods to be seen as a couple in clinic, encouraging “love letters” by women patients to invite their husbands to follow-up visits and to communicate information on healthy pregnancies.

8. 2013 Survey of “good practices among Catholic Church-related organisations • 70% of interviewees indicated that their organisations were involved in implementing the Global Plan, especially through collaboration with National AIDS Plans; • Respondents also expressed an overall sense of optimism that PMTCT scale-up efforts have resulted in lives saved and in a greater uptake of services

9. Some “Good Practice” Examples • In November 2012, 460 people were tested for HIV in the Kangemi in Nairobi, as part of the annual “Uzima (‘Full Life’) Day”at St. Joseph the Worker Catholic parish; • The Association Community Pope John XXIII’s Raimbow Project in Ndola, Zambia, addresses nutritional needs of malnourished children but combined this with a large-scale VCT (voluntary testing and counselling) programme in the same district.

10. Some “Good Practice” Examples • Kitovu Mobile AIDS Organization, sponsored by the Catholic Diocese of Masaka, Uganda, solved transport difficulties by delivering ART to clients in hard-to-reach communities - thus serving 1,441 clients, 75% of whom are women + some 60 children. • Project Hope, an initiative of St. Martin de Porres Catholic Mission Hospital in Njinikom, Cameroon, operates a “children’s HIV friendly club” in order to improve ART adherence among some HIV+ 80 children under 15 years of age.

11. Some “Good Practice” Examples • Doctors with Africa (CUAMM) helped to establish a peer-to-peer support group of mentor mothers to strengthen the work of the paediatric hospital in the Sofala province of Mozambique. The group took the name of “Kuplumussana” (literaly, “those who help each other”). These women serve as a connecting link between the clinical PMTCT programmes and HIV-positive mothers. • They are present at health centres to offer support and explanations to mothers accessing these facilities. While the mothers wait to be examined, the suport group coordinates education and training on the disease, the importance of being tested, accessing ART, and of compliance, nutrition, and breastfeeding.

12. Cardinal Bertone, Secretary of State to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI appeals for Universal Access • What more effective image of love is there than the relationship between the mother and the child? Whoever saves the mother and child saves the future of the world, it could be said! • In the presence of so many authoritative Ministers and persons in charge of health care, I would like to address an appeal to the International Community, to States and to donors: … May universal access to treatment be agreed! • Let us do so beginning with the mothers and children. • In this See, in the name of the Holy Father, I make myself the voice of the many who are suffering, of so many patients who do not have a voice. • Let us not waste time and invest all the resources necessary!”

13. Appeal of Pope Benedict XVI on World AIDS Day 2012 "HIV/AIDS particularly affects the poorest regions of the world, where there is very limited access to effective medicines. My thoughts turn in particular to the large number of children who contract the virus from their mothers each year, despite the treatments which exist to prevent its transmission. I encourage the many initiatives that, within the scope of the ecclesial mission, have been taken in order to eradicate this scourge". http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/2012/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20121128_en.html