ViiV Healthcare & Coalition for Children Affected by AIDS Award Grants to Support Children and Adolescents Affected by HIV
Reaching All Children Grants Intended to Identify Social Protection Solutions that Work
Middlesex, UK: As Global Social Protection Week begins, ViiV Healthcare’s Positive Action and the Coalition for Children Affected by AIDS announced today that they have awarded $40,000 in grants to eight organizations dedicated to helping children and adolescents affected by HIV. Each winner of the “Reaching All Children Challenge” has received $5,000 to produce either a scientific article or a case study that documents how the use of social protection supports HIV testing, treatment, and care for children in low or middle-income countries. This can include economic support, health insurance, employment assistance, and local efforts to reduce poverty, inequality, and barriers to accessing social and medical services.
“Millions of children are out of the reach of HIV testing, treatment, and care services. They are either too poor, too stigmatised or too far away to access or to benefit from the mainstream HIV response,” says Corinna Csaky, Manager of the Coalition for Children Affected by AIDS. “Social protection is an important tool for bridging this gap. It can reduce the risk of contracting HIV, but there is limited evidence on how it can protect and support vulnerable children and adolescents in testing, treatment, and care.”
The Reaching All Children Challenge seeks to address this evidence gap by providing the scientific findings and case studies to help drive greater attention towards integrated programming.
The grant winners were determined by a global panel of scientific and programmatic experts, as well as fellow community-based organizations.
The winning organizations and projects are:
Africaid Zvandiri (Harare, Zimbabwe): Promoting HIV and social protection outcomes among children, adolescents, and young people through the engagement of peers in a national HIV sensitive case management system.
Brewin Foundation (Zigoti, Uganda): Using Economic Adherence Support Groups to improve retention and viral suppression among children and adolescents living with HIV and AIDS.
Center for Development and Capacity Building (Addis Ababa, Ethiopia): Mobilizing HIV Positive mothers and their babies for prevention of mother-to-child transmission services in Oromia Regional State of Ethiopia.
YLabs (Kigali, Rwanda): Combining peer-led financial literacy training and social transfers to promote medication adherence and retention in care among adolescents with HIV.
Catholic Diocese of Ngong (Ngong, Kenya): Helping orphans and vulnerable children using the case management approach to improve the resilience of families affected by HIV and AIDS.
University College London (London, UK): The impact of cash-plus-nutrition on child cognitive outcomes in South Africa and Malawi.
Cheer Up (Kiambu, Central Kenya): Household Economic Strengthening for improved HIV prevention, treatment, care, and support.
Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (Washington, D.C.): Bread of Life: A family-focused, asset-based approach to addressing barriers to retention in care and sustaining HIV care and treatment outcomes for people living with HIV, which includes children and their families, through community-driven livelihood interventions in the Lowareng’ak Health Centre, Turkana County, Kenya.
“Children and adolescents are a key group that we are committed to involve and support as part of the HIV response. We know that social protection can reduce the risk of contracting HIV but a lack of data on how this approach can specifically help children gets in the way,” says Stephen Rea, ViiV’s Head of External Affairs and Communications. “These grants will help gather much-needed evidence to encourage investment in smart solutions that help vulnerable children and adolescents.”
About The Coalition for Children Affected by AIDS
The Coalition for Children Affected by AIDS is a unique group of global donors, UN agencies, NGOs, and independent experts working together to help children survive and thrive. This includes children and adolescents (aged 0-18 years) infected with HIV and AIDS; those at risk of infection; and children affected by the social and economic impacts of others close to them living with HIV.
About ViiV Healthcare
ViiV Healthcare is a global specialist HIV company established in November 2009 by GlaxoSmithKline (LSE: GSK) and Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) dedicated to delivering advances in treatment and care for people living with HIV. Shionogi joined as a shareholder in October 2012. The company’s aim is to take a deeper and broader interest in HIV/AIDS than any company has done before and take a new approach to deliver effective and new HIV medicines, as well as support communities affected by HIV. Grants available through Positive Action aim to encourage new and innovative approaches where current and past practice has failed to address these issues or has delivered inadequate success.