Activities
The Huairou Commission AIDS Campaign serves as a platform for grassroots organizations responding to HIV/AIDS on the ground to link globally for peer exchange, joint activities and advocacy. As HIV/AIDS is now a cross-cutting issue, many of the groups involved are also using the entry point of the syndrome to address issues of Governance and Secure Tenure. These are just some of the discrete activities occuring within the AIDS Campaign.

The Compensations for Contributions Initiative:
Creating an enabling policy and institutional framework for effective home-based care
The Huairou Commission is pleased to announce the launching of an 18 month action research and advocacy initiative: “Compensations for Contributions.” The project, being supported by the UNDP-Japan Partnership Fund (WID/GAD) has been designed by Huairou Commission members and grassroots women caregivers working across Africa to create a platform for collective groups of home-based caregivers to quantify the contributions they make and the gaps that exist between AIDS policies and conditions on the ground.  The goal of this initiative is to support the creation of mechanisms from which organized groups of caregivers can negotiate for recognition, resources and supportive policies with local, national and international policy and program makers as well as additional relevant stakeholders.

Stay informed and get involved
One of the planned outcomes of the research will be a tool and standardized methodology that can be used by groups of home-based caregivers in to aid in their own organizing and advocacy efforts. We will make this tool available after the initial testing phase of the research, in mid-2009.

For more information, click here

Home-Based Care Alliance
GROOTS International is currently organizing the Home-Based Care Alliance in Africa. The process has been successfully piloted in Kenya by GROOTS Kenya, and is currently being organized by GROOTS members in Cameroon, Nigeria, Rwanda and Uganda.

The goals of the HBC Alliance are to valorize the currently unrecognized contributions of home-based caregivers, to shift resoures and decision-making power to those providing a major unpaid response to HIV/AIDS at the local level, to form a broad network for peer learning, and to serve as a platform for advocacy and negotiations with government, donors and other decision-makers in the field of AIDS.

For more information on the Alliance, click here

Donor Dialogue
At the International AIDS Conference in Toronto, August 2006, GROOTS International faclitated an action-oriented dialogue between grassroots women, and their partners and donors with an eye towards creating an advocacy platform for ensuring that global funds for fighting AIDS get to the grassroots level. That stakeholding group is currently being consolidated and follow-up steps being discussed.

Community AIDS Watch
The Watches will track how donor resources are distributed at the community level; document actions, strategies and responses of community groups coping with poverty and HIV/AIDS; make space for public dialogues about AIDS; accumulate knowledge for exchange and provide field-fresh information for advocacy purposes. The first Watch was held in 2004 in Kenya, in partnership with GROOTS Kenya, the New School Graduate Program in International Affairs and Kenya's university system.

Continue Collaboration with Faith-Based AFRUS-AIDS Partnership
AFRUS AIDS is a broad-based coalition of global women's networks and faith-based organizations committed to strengthening and linking community-based African grassroots women's organizations that are fighting the HIV/AIDS pandemic. AFRUS AIDS is creating opportunities for strategic global spaces for grassroots women to advocate for their own development and resources, such as the Grassroots Academy at ICASA 2005. AFRUS is also currently developing curriculum for education within church women's groups in the US. Some US-based members are the United Church of Christ, United Methodist Church General Board of Global Ministries, Church World Service, American Jewish World Service and World Day of Prayer.

www.afrusaids.org

Expanding the Network
The Huairou Commission AIDS Campaign is currently in the process of consolidating its core membership, and expanding the campaign into new countries (including Zimbabwe, South Africa and Zambia). Expansion will serve to increase participation in planning and organizational growth and to broaden advocacy and peer learning opportunities.

For more information or to get involved write to:
Shannon Hayes: shannon.hayes@huairou.org