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Scale up of READY++

A group of people listening to a speaker Alliance India

Key information

  • Organisation: Alliance India
  • Country: India
  • Region: Asia and the Pacific
  • Stage of innovation: Stage 6: In the market and ready to scale
  • Start date: 2017
  • End date: Ongoing
  • Type of innovation: Services delivery innovation: new or different way of providing a service
  • Budget: US$105,000
  • Funded by: Frontline AIDS, Oracle and HSBC

Summary of intervention

Many adolescents and young people living with HIV experience stigma and low self-worth, leave school early, lack skills and have limited knowledge about sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). This makes them vulnerable to exploitation and affects their health and wellbeing.

To address this issue, Alliance India wants to scale-up READY++ in five Indian states. READY++ provides training on vocational skills, lifeskills and SRHR for adolescents and young people living with HIV.

A state-level residential workshop for 25 young people will be conducted in the five states to find potential peer champions. An advanced, 4-day training for 35 peer champions from these workshops will then take place in Delhi. Topics will be SRHR, lifeskills, communication and social media skills and will incorporate feedback from existing READY ++ peer champions. Alliance India will then contract 20 peer champions who will establish a support group with 10 – 15 adolescents and young people living with HIV that they know. A one-day experience sharing session will also be conducted with four peer champions per state. A state-level team will support the peer champions and support groups (which are supported by Vihaan) and document the project.

Learnings

  • Most READY++ peer trainees had not had the opportunity to discuss and understand their issues before. READY++ supported them to feel more confident to deal with their emotions, take appropriate decisions and address SRHR myths and misconceptions.
  • The peer networks established after the training helped peers deal with difficult situations, such as stigma and discrimination, and to make healthy choices.
  • Three days is not enough to address sensitive SRHR subjects; a minimum of five days is needed.

Next steps

  • India’s National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) has acknowledged the need to incorporate READY++ in its youth programme. The aim is for NACO to accept the READY++ curriculum and enable Alliance India to implement READY++ across the country, supported and supervised by the State AIDS Control Societies (SACS). Every effort will be made to ensure that NACO and SACS are included in major READY++ activities to achieve this goal.
  • Alliance India is offering assistance to other Frontline AIDS partners that want to develop similar programmes.