Success Stories
PEPFAR, Community Grants, Peace Corps and TASO Power Real Change
When Peace Corps volunteer Hannah Gardi first arrived in her village in Iganga two years ago, she found a community struggling with an unusually high rate of HIV infection and an absence of patient support services. Hannah and her counterpart Sula forged a partnership with determined beneficiaries to apply for funding, manage microfinance projects and support its members. She launched an income-generating project producing cloth school bags. The project raised over $7,000 to pay for CBO staff salaries, youth programs and HIV testing for over 2,000 people. The extra income revived the community volunteer program that provides critical adherence support in patients’ homes. Since then, stigma is down in the community and condom use is up. “People want to get tested now,” says Hannah.
Hannah’s project received funding from the U.S. Mission to Uganda’s Community Grants Program to Combat HIV/AIDS, which is funded through PEPFAR. The small grant paid for seeds and equipment for the community gardens and six bulls to plow the fields. When not used for gardening, the bulls are rented to other farmers and the proceeds returned to the communal gardening fund. The renewable crops are a key source of nutrition for patients; surplus is sold for a profit that is also returned to the group. The Community Grants Program also paid for 200 mosquito nets and a motorcycle to transport Home Based Care volunteers to the most rural and hard-to-reach of the 580 People Living With HIV/AIDS (PHAs) and 1906 Orphans and Vulnerable Children that they serve. At night, the bike is used as a taxi, generating additional income for the project.
A PEPFAR-funded volunteer herself, Hannah then convinced the Ministry of Health to distribute Septrin, with Community Grants to Combat HIV/AIDS funding. Sula says Septrin makes “the biggest difference of all.” Ensuring that the 580 PHAs registered with Sula’s Home Based Care Program continue to receive treatment once the one-year Community Grant comes to an end, Peace Corps and Community Grants formed a sustainable link with TASO. They negotiated the opening of a TASO Outreach Center in Iganga District. Eliminating the transportation barrier, this TASO satellite branch is now providing comprehensive care and treatment to the people in Iganga.
After two years together, Hannah and Sula built valuable relationships inside and outside their community, with Peace Corps and the US Embassy’s Community Grants Program to Combat HIV/AIDS. They also put systems in place that are sustainable and powered by the very people they serve.
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