HOPE Youth HIV Prevention Project

DAPP implements the Hope Youth HIV Prevention project through eight sub-sub grantees in nine (9) districts across five provinces in Zambia. The main focus of the project is to improve the sexual and reproductive health of young people, reduce gender-based violence, and provide integrated outreach health services for adolescents.

The core causes of youth HIV infections, poor health outcomes, and AIDS-related fatalities, such as gender-related, socioeconomic, and other inequities, limited access to information, and others, must be addressed if new HIV infections have to end by 2030.

We work hand in hand with one-stop centers, victim support units, and local courts to ensure that survivors of Gender Based Violence (GBV) have access to legal services and justice. This is done through project trained paralegals who play a critical role in supporting survivors in their journey towards healing and recovery. They also work on raising awareness and to reduce all kinds of abuse and violence in their communities.

The project trains peer-educators as family planning distributors to provide family planning services and sexual and reproductive health information in 65 tertiary institutions. As of 2022, total number of 12,908 students were reached by 247 distributors, resulting in reduced unwanted pregnancies, reduced abortions as well as reduced new HIV infections.

The project also trains School Peer Educators to provide sexual and reproductive health information and promote means to reduce risk of contracting HIV including delayed sexual debut, increased use of condoms and being faithful to one sexual partner.

Adolescents' interrelated health care requirements for HIV care, sexual and reproductive health, and disease prevention make integrated service delivery—providing coordinated services in a practical way—important in HIV prevention and treatment.

45 integrated outreach health services were conducted reaching adolescents with information about Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision (VMMC), promoting/ conducting HIV testing, family planning, Covid-19 vaccination and information on improved nutrition.