Summary

Program goals

Aims of Zingatia Maisha Zingatia Maisha works with the Ministry of Health and local communities to ensure that ART has the maximum benefit for the patient’s quality of life. This includes: helping health care workers understand and follow national guidelines on the appropriate and sensitive delivery of HIV treatment services helping AIDS-support groups ensure their members adhere to their treatment regime strengthening links between community support groups and government health facilities so that patient referrals and follow-up are improved

Key program components

Through the project, community-based support groups have helped HIV treatment centres to develop referral tools, deliver HIV awareness and treatment education and improved care. Thirty-eight sites across Kenya have established the project’s unique Health Facility/Community Linkage Committees or HCLCs, working with 190 PLHIV support groups. The HCLCs provided a forum for clinicians and other health workers to interact with representatives of the PLHIV support groups, share and address concerns or grievances, identify specific challenges and devise responses from all parties. The project also ensured all sites attained an appropriate level of infrastructure and technical capacity, funding minor but significant improvements to buildings and equipment and training in areas such as ART adherence support, stigma reduction, stress management and trauma awareness. Meanwhile community support groups were developed in the fields of psychosocial support, treatment literacy, referral, defaulter tracing and treatment adherence support along with organisational needs including leadership, documentation and reporting, and book keeping.