PSI/Zimbabwe

Project Activities and Highlights

• PSI/Zimbabwe educates high risk target groups on HIV/AIDS prevention issues through an innovative TV soap opera series, Studio 263. The objective of the soap opera series is to provide information related to HIV/AIDS in an entertaining and educational format. The TV series provides an arena for reflection and discussions of complex issues such as PMTCT, discordant couples, positive living and self risk perception, among others. Young viewers follow characters in Studio 263 as they confront reproductive health issues and experience consequences with the characters before these outcomes affect viewers in real life.

Studio 263 was launched in 2002 and is currently the highest rated and longest-running TV show in Zimbabwe with a dedicated viewership of over three million viewers. Although its core viewers remain young adults, Studio 263 has managed to attract an older audience with its social relevance and family appeal.

• The New Start network provides voluntary counseling and HIV testing (VCT) for general and high-risk populations in Zimbabwe. New Start VCT services were developed using best practices in Zimbabwe and around the world to create a service network that is professional, anonymous, confidential, accessible and client-oriented. More than 370,000 clients have been counseled and tested for HIV through a network of 20 centers operating nationwide. Currently over 12,000 clients are going through VCT services every month in Zimbabwe through the New Start network. Since mid-2004, staff from the New Start centers has been conducting regular outreach missions in order to reach rural Zimbabweans. In 2004, 24% of VCT clients were from these outreach missions.

• PSI/Zimbabwe also operates and manages a network of four post-test support centers, New Life, to provide psycho-social counselling to people living with HIV/AIDS. The objective of the post-test support network is to improve linkages to care and support organizations for those who know their HIV status. The centers provide a range of services for those infected and affected by HIV/AIDS: nutritional counselling, adherence counselling, and support with disclosure. In 2004, PSI/Zimbabwe launched E'PAP, a high-energy food supplement. The product is available as part of a nutritional package: counselling on nutritional needs of HIV positive people and nutritional booklet.

• PSI HIV/AIDS prevention activities target high risk populations with a special emphasis on border towns, growth points, resettlement areas and high risk outlets such as liquor and bottle stores and nightclubs. PSI/ Zimbabwe has distribution partnerships with Coca Cola's local bottlers to distribute Protector Plus condoms in up-country and rural areas and a partnership with Farming Community Trust of Zimbabwe to promote the product in resettlement areas. PSI/Zimbabwe has the highest per capita condom (four per capita) sales in the region and sold over 43 million male condoms in 2004 reaching the farthest corners of the country.

PSI/Zimbabwe supports HIV/AIDS prevention efforts with targeted mass media and interpersonal communications to ensure correct and consistent use of condoms and behavior change messages targeting the ABCs of promotion. In 2005, PSI/Zimbabwe's sales team will focus on improving distribution in rural areas and quality of sales in high prevalence areas.

• In summer 1997, PSI/Zimbabwe successfully launched a branded female condom, the Care contraceptive sheath, and began selling it in pharmacies and other outlets nationwide. Following the results of extensive formative research, PSI/Zimbabwe decided to position Care primarily as a family planning product that protects couples from disease. The Care social marketing program is one of the most successful programs of its kind in sub-Saharan Africa, with nearly 900,000 sheaths distributed in 2004. Female condom social marketing program uses innovative sales channels such as the hair salon network and home meetings (among women) to educate potential consumers on correct use of the product and increasing personal risk perception.

• PSI/Zimbabwe began Professional Family Planning Services Project (ProFam) in October 1997, to increase demand for and supply of reproductive health services in the private sector. The project trains private sector medical service providers such as doctors, independent nurses, and pharmacists, who in turn provide quality reproductive health services and contraceptive products at affordable prices. As the declining value of local currency forced the price of ProFam products beyond the reach of its target consumers, the initiative was redesigned to provide products at subsidized prices to ensure affordability. Currently the ProFam network consists of almost 1200 medical providers (doctors, independent nurses and pharmacists).

• Zimbabwe is one of seven African countries participating in Corridors of Hope, a program designed to proliferate and strengthen condom social marketing activities for the prevention of HIV/AIDS at key cross-border locations in Zambia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Swaziland, South Africa, Mozambique and Namibia. Activities focus on high-risk target groups: commercial sex workers, truckers, informal traders, uniformed officials, and adolescent girls. Visit the Corridors of Hope page for information about Zimbabwe's involvement.

• PSI/Zimbabwe introduced a malaria prevention program in the Gokwe districts in 2004. The program uses ante-natal clinics and immunization facilities as sales outlets to promote long lasting insecticide-treated mosquito net (LLIN) to pregnant women and children under five. Gokwe district is one of the ten priority districts identified under the Roll Back Malaria Initiative. To date, 14,000 mosquito nets have been sold to pregnant women and mothers of children under five.

Future Plans
• PSI/Zimbabwe will pinpoint the focus and scope of its BCC activities to key areas such as: improving condom efficacy, increasing risk perception especially among youth and increasing the median age of onset of sexual activity. PSI/Zimbabwe will launch mass media campaigns to promote delaying onset of sexual debut among youth and one to address stigma against people living with HIV/AIDS.

• New Start Centers will expand VCT outreach activities to 14 sites and will include all border towns as part of its outreach program.

• PSI/Zimbabwe will introduce the peer post-test model to increase impact without expanding the existing post-test sites. This model uses HIV positive individuals to form post-test clubs to motivate other members of their community to seek VCT services and provide follow up support services. The model will be rolled out with technical input from New Life counselors.

• PSI/Zimbabwe will expand strategic alliances with Coca-Cola and the Zimbabwean Post Office to expand the presence of condom products in rural areas.

• PSI/Zimbabwe will scale up its malaria prevention programme with the SUPANET distribution from 1 to 17 priority districts in partnership with UNICEF and MOHCW.