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Faith Communities Programme (FCP)

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The Faith Communities Programme (FCP) is a behaviour change communications (BCC) programme established by Population Services International (PSI)/Malawi with financial support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The programme works in partnership with the Malawi Interfaith AIDS Association (MIAA) in two districts, interacting with faith communities to reduce the incidence and mitigate the effects of HIV/AIDS. The FCP offers training and workshops in HIV/AIDS prevention, communication, and leadership skills for faith leaders to strengthen their efforts to promote safe behaviour among the members of their congregations and communities. FCP also conducts youth-friendly workshops with young people that address issues ranging from the importance of delayed sexual debut, strategies for resisting peer pressure, and the risks of cross-generational sex.
Communication Strategies

The programme undertakes several activities in order to meet its objective of increasing the adoption of safer sexual and reproductive behaviours in the community:

Youth Education Seminars (10-20 years)
The faith-based youth are reached through community outreach on issues related to HIV/AIDS, and emphasis is placed on the importance of abstinence as a risk avoidance behaviour. The curriculum includes:

  • Basic life skills education such as self-esteem
  • Self-worth
  • Understanding sexuality
  • Why and how to delay sexual debut
  • Importance of both primary and secondary abstinence
  • How to deal with peer pressure and the dangers of cross-generational sex.

Participatory training is conducted by FCP staff using a training manual specifically designed for this audience. Between October 2005 and September 2006, 4,700 youth were reached.

Adult Education Seminars (21-49 years)
The FCP reaches faith-based adults with two- to three-day, non-residential seminars at religious institutions that address, for example, the importance of: mutual fidelity, voluntary counselling and testing (VCT), the problems of cross-generational and transactional sex, cultural practices and HIV/AIDS, and gender issues as they relate to HIV/AIDS.

Participants are from both the Christian and Muslim communities. Between October 2005 and September 2006, 3,000 adults were reached.

Faith and Youth Leaders
The FCP conducts training workshops for faith leaders and youth leaders on the theory and practice of behaviour change in order to create a corps of religious authority figures and opinion leaders who can lead the HIV/AIDS education, sensitisation, and community mobilisation effort.

Some of the issues addressed in the workshops include:

  • Religious institutions' policy on HIV/AIDS
  • Combating stigma and discrimination
  • HIV/AIDS prevention (primary and secondary abstinence, mutual fidelity, and correct and consistent condom use).

Support for orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) (10-24 years)
The FCP conducts vocational skills training for OVC between the ages of 10 and 24 in combination with life skills and adolescent sexual and reproductive health education. The programme is designed to equip these children and young people with the skills to develop self-reliant behaviour and reduce their vulnerability to cross-generational and transactional sex. It is hoped that the skills they learn will result in them playing productive and effective roles in their communities and will help protect them from contracting HIV/AIDS.

Development Issues

HIV/AIDS, Youth.

Partners

Malawi Council of Churches, the Evangelical Association of Malawi, the Charismatic & Pentecostal Association, the Hindu Community, the Bahai Faith in Malawi, the Episcopal Conference of Malawi, the Qadria Muslim Association of Malawi, the Seventh Day Adventists, and the Muslim Association of Malawi.

Sources

Email from Andrew Miller to Soul Beat Africa on November 7 2006.