NGOs in Asia adopt a strengths-based approach

Partner: Asian Development Bank

NGOs in six Asian countries -Cambodia, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea and Thailand- had the opportunity to learn and apply the AIDS Competence Process in their work with communities. 436 facilitators have been trained in the process, 546 communities have done their self-assessment and 333 of these have built an action plan. Many shared stories of change in their way of working and at community level.

The past two years the Constellation had a tremendous occasion to apply the AIDS Competence Approach in a regional setting with a wide variety of NGOsand communities, varying from religious groups, to vibrant transgender communities and rural villages. 

AIDS Competence – like the virus - is not making a distinction in gender, race, economical status or country boundaries.

In each participating country, the Constellation accompanied a National NGO Facilitation Team. As a team, and throughout sustained by experienced coaches, 436 participants have built their capacity to facilitate the AIDS Competence Process. The results exceeded expectations. NGO-facilitators have brought the approach back in their own organizations, have trained new generations of facilitators, have adapted the tools and have applied the process to other Life and Health related issues.

In the six countries, 546 communities assess their strengths and weaknesses in their response to AIDS, develop their own action plans, act to tackle the issues of prevention and treatment together and learn from their own experiences and those of other communities and countries. A few examples amongst many others:

In the Philippines, the NGO ‘KGPP’ adapted the self-assessment to risk behavior of street children. Every three months, the children are assessing their own risk behavior with regards to HIV and STI. This stimulates them to change their behavior. Most of them go back to school, get tested for STI and HIV and sell artworks to earn a living. Below you will see an example of a teenager that has improved from Dec 2008 to March 2009.

After several SALT visits in Periyackulam district, sex workers decide to set up their own savings fund to reduce their vulnerability to HIV. "Sex without condoms: those days are gone!" explained one of the women.

Facilitators came together in Chiang Mai in February 2009, to share their experience at an International Knowledge Fair. Experiences have been captured in Knowledge Assets.

In all countries there is a committed group of facilitators to take ACP forward. In three of the six countries these groups want to establish themselves as a formal entity: IndoCompetence, IndiaCompetenece and PNG AIDS Competence. 

The fact that this programme was carried out in a partnership relation and not under traditional donor-client conditions has positively affected the progress throughout the two years.