Toolkit: Understanding and challenging HIV stigma in the MENA region

The toolkit is a training resource containing participatory exercises in order to understand and challenge stigma.

Men who have sex with men (MSM) are the main target group, but it is intended for other affected groups to benefit from the toolkit too. There are messages, information and activities that can be adapted and used for other key populations.

This version has been designed to use in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, and includes adapted exercises and stories that are more relevant to this context. In different countries in the MENA region there are emerging concentrated HIV epidemics among key populations, notably men who have sex with men (MSM), male and female sex workers and people who inject drugs.

USAID’s Middle East and North Africa Regional Programme, implemented by the Alliance, has been working with local partner organisations in Morocco, Tunisia, Lebanon and Algeria since 2004. We have been responding to the sexual health needs of MSM and other key populations through support to capacity-building, peer education, advocacy and outreach programmes.

The toolkit has been adapted from Understanding and challenging HIV stigma: toolkit for action (Module H: MSM and stigma) which was developed by and for African trainers, and has been used extensively around the continent to support HIV stigma reduction programmes.

The toolkit is also available in French (published January 2013) and in Arabic (published December 2015) below.