The Second HIV Capacity Building Partners’ Summit Birchwood Hotel and Conference Centre, Johannesburg, South Africa | March 19-21, 2013 Turning the Tide on HIV and Health Through Capacity Building Gertrude’s Children’s Hospital Poster Presentation Advocacy for Increased Training to Prevent HIV Infection in Children The first HIV Capacity Building Partners’ Summit held in March 2011 in Nairobi, and attended by more than 250 delegates from 25 countries, marked the beginning of a new thinking about how partners can work together to ensure that capacity building delivers results. It is against this background that organisations working in Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) region organised the Second HIV Capacity Building Summit (Capacity Summit 2013) in Johannesburg, South Africa. The Summit offered an opportunity for capacity building experts, policy-makers and the HIV-affected community to review and refine evidence-based, sustainable capacity building interventions that are country-owned and geared towards attaining the HIV and health targets

1. Advocacy for Paediatric HIV and AIDS Training
The Campaign
A baseline survey was conducted which formed the basis of an
inception workshop from which communication materials for
the advocacy campaign were developed. NASCOP provided
Gertrude’s with the latest data and information on capacity
development of health workers in the country. The campaign
was done through mass media and interpersonal channels of
communication such as workshops.
Media Involvement
About 30 representatives from community organisations
participated in a one-day basic interactive advocacy training
session, to help build their advocacy skills especially in
paediatric HIV. During the campaign, a core group of 15
journalists were exposed to the issues of paediatric HIV resulting
in media coverage of the initiative.
Lessons Learned
About Gertrude’s Children’s Hospital
Gertrude’s Children’s Hospital, Nairobi ,Kenya is one of the few
hospitals in Sub-Saharan Africa that is dedicated solely to the
provision of healthcare for children with it mission through the
Gertrude’s Professional Training Centre to improve knowledge by
training people in paediatric care
For More Information About This
Project Contact:
Name Gordon Otieno Odundo
E-mail Address godundo@gerties.org www.gerties.org
Phone Number 254-20-7206000
Statement of Problem
In Kenya, where infant and child mortality rates had been
decreasing, HIV/AIDS, malaria, and malnutrition are now the
leading cause of mortality. WHO estimates that 400 million
children worldwide are infected with HIV or ill with AIDS annually,
with more than 90% of them coming from Sub-Saharan Africa.
Clinical treatment of children with HIV/AIDS poses particular
challenges; children are not just small adults they require special
care, treatment, and drug formulations and this requires that
healthcare workers receive specific education, training, and on-going
support.
Project Description
The overall aim of the project was to save the lives of children
affected and infected by HIV/AIDS through advocacy for
improved training that will result in the better quality of care.A
major bottleneck in achieving better quality of Pediatric HIV and
AIDS care and treatment is the lack of trained health care
workers.
Overall Objective
Between March and August 2011, Gertrude’s Children’s Hospital,
with support from the Regional AIDS Training Network and in
conjunction with stakeholder organisations carried out an
advocacy campaign to raise awareness about the unique
challenges facing management of paediatric HIV/AIDS in
Kenya.
Specific Objectives
Our advocacy campaign was aimed at persuading stakeholders
and policy makers to develop and implement policies and
guidelines that will promote scale up of programmes that will
help move the country towards the vision that no child should be
born HIV positive
Results
The Process
Figure 1
The organisations that took part in the
campaign also agreed to widen the scope
and develop a caucus of like-minded
organisations that can collaborate in future
initiatives to generate larger campaigns
and more visibility for the issue of
paediatric HIV/AIDS.
Gertrude’s recognizes that significant
policy changes require sustained
communication and advocacy efforts and
with time will develop further its advocacy
efforts through collaborative partnerships
MI
Logo
An INSTANT Project