Community responses to HIV and AIDS

| September 4, 2016

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This week’s story from Kenya talks about a merry-go-round approach to group savings, sometimes also known as a rotating savings and credit association, or ROSCA.

These group savings schemes can be critical when HIV and AIDS impact a family or a community.

Our Script of the week talks about the wide range of social support activities that Africans have established to help cope with the impact of HIV and AIDS in their communities. These activities serve to share the burden of increasing workloads. Sometimes they are initiated by the community itself, or they may be started and supported by outside agencies such as government, NGOs, or religious institutions. The wide range of strategies includes:

  • loans and savings clubs;
  • shared child care;
  • labour-saving clubs;
  • funeral funds/burial societies;
  • social support groups; and
  • community grain banks.

Coping strategies that are developed locally are often the most practical and least expensive to implement. Broadcasters have an opportunity to promote and support local coping strategies by featuring them in radio programs.

The following script features two hosts discussing a variety of approaches to the labour shortages that can result from HIV and AIDS. Please see the end of the script for descriptions of some of the coping strategies mentioned in the script.

http://www.farmradio.org/radio-resource-packs/package-73-hivaids-and-food-security/community-responses-to-hivaids/