Tamale NGO creates awareness on HIV/AIDS prevention

The National Centre for Health Education in Germany (BZgA), has initiated a Join-In Circuit (J-IC) concept, a mobile learning system on the core topics of reproductive health and HIV/AIDS, which targets young people for behavioral change.

The J-IC is part of a larger behavior change campaign called “Don’t give AIDS a chance,” and was first developed in 1994 to work with person-to-person communication in order to give an opportunity for discussion to provide information in an open atmosphere.

Mr Hamzah Abass, Executive Director of Hats Community Empowerment Programme (HACEP-Ghana), a Tamale-based NGO, told the GNA on Tuesday that in 2001, the German Technical Co-operation (GTZ) entered into partnership with the BZgA to support national initiatives that fell in line with HIV prevention to reduce the pandemic.

He said HACEP-Ghana later adopted the J-IC initiative because it was a participatory and interactive tool designed to break the culture of silence in reproductive health and HIV/AIDS issues.

Mr Abass indicated that the J-IC had been successfully adapted and implemented in more than 22 countries across the world. He said the J-IC programme uses interactive exercises, pictorial support and education and entertainment strategies to promote behaviour change among young people.

He said central to the J-IC concept, it was the belief that love, sexuality in teenagers were pleasurable experiences in their lives, and that youth-based programmes needed to emphasize on those exciting aspects, as they appealed to young people.

Mr Abass emphasized that innovative strategies enabled young people to talk more openly about HIV/AIDS, and help them to confront the challenges they face as they pass through the adolescent cycle.

HACEP-Ghana is an NGO operating in the Northern Region in the areas of Reproductive Health and rights issues, with the focus on HIV/AIDS prevention.