Stigma training in Ghana – a participant’s view
15 December 2006
The Regional Stigma Training Project, part of the Alliance’s Africa Regional Programme, is based in the Alliance Zambia country office, and trains teams of trainers around Southern and Eastern Africa on HIV stigma and discrimination using the toolkit Understanding and Challenging HIV Stigma: Toolkit for Action. The trainers then roll out the toolkit and training within their own countries.
The project began in 2004, and so far, trainers from over ten different countries have been trained. Victoria Adongo tells us more about her experience as one of the participants in a recent training workshop in Ghana, organised by Christian AID and facilitated by the Alliance, in an extract from an article she wrote for Public Agenda:
Training of trainers on anti-stigma takes place
Victoria Adongo – ISODEC
Despite widespread awareness-raising on HIV related stigma in Ghana, stigma remains high and few organisations have the tools to facilitate effective education on it at the community level. It was the hope of the organisers that the Training of Trainers will support participants develop organisational strategies and programmatic approaches to challenge stigma and discrimination and to mainstream the issue.
This workshop could not have taken place at a better time as the Ghana Aids Commission is about to embark on yet another national anti-stigma compaign this time ensuring that the message goes farther, wider and deeper among the Ghanaian populace.
Not too long ago the Director General of the Ghana Aids Commission also reiterated the "People Living with HIV/AIDS and those affected by it will not seek any of the existing services such as VCT, if it at the risk of stigma, discrimination and lack of confidentiality and such negative consequences" (Ghana Aids Commission). Stigma is also a barrier to access to treatment and voluntary disclosure.
Participants to the workshop included the Network of Associations of People Living With HIV/AIDS (NAP+), members of the Coalition for Free Universal Access to Anti-Retroviral Treatment, Members of the Anti-stigma Coalition, Ghana Aids Commission, Ghana HIV/Aids Network, Christian Council of Ghana, Ghana Sustainable Change Project, Centre for Sustainable Development Initiatives (CENSUDI),Muslim Relief Association of Ghana, ISODEC and SEND Foundation.
The training was facilitated by two resource persons from the International Aids Alliance based in Zambia. They have facilitated Anti-stigma training of trainers in over ten African countries.
The training tackled issues of stigma and discrimination against people with HIV but also wider social issues of discrimination, especially those related to sex, sin, morality and gender, which are at the root of different types of social stigma, discrimination and prejudice.
Much emphasis in the training was put on facilitation and training skills and the workshop was structured in a manner that uses participation and bottom-up facilitation to maximum standards.
At the end of the workshop the twenty three participants pledged to use their knowledge to play a significant role in the national effort to fight stigma and discrimination. They promised to replicate the training for their organisations and other organisations including Community Based Organisations, Education Institutions, Faith based Organisations and Workplaces.
In a communiqué issued to the Ministry of Health through the Ghana Aids Commission, they called on all stakeholders to make maximum use of the trainers in the national campaign. They also called on workplace HIV/AIDS policies that would address stigma and discrimination at workplaces.
