The “India Avahan Initiative-Partnering with the Media for an Enabling Environment to Address HIV/AIDS”, which we have been implementing since 2005 in six high prevalence states, has given us an opportunity to amalgamate the core competence we have honed over the last decade in media monitoring and content tracking, sensitizing and building capacities, media advocacy and communications research and primary documentation which captures the experiences of the community.

Using these processes we created the necessary infrastructure, acquainted the team with the overall project goals, processes and expected outcomes, carried out needs based assessments, sensitized the media and developed a discourse through the media by providing consistent media support to State Lead Partners, key populations and implementing partners.

In 2006-07 these activities were taken further and extended to showcasing the work done by the communities and their collectives. And highlighting the processes adopted by NGOs and State Lead Partners. In order to do this CFAR forged institutional partnerships with leading agencies in these states and with their support we worked with the community to develop an advocacy that focused on the work being done by them to bring about behavioral change. And creating a response that is rooted in local experiences and capacities.

Tracking the media involved the monitoring of 15 national dailies at the state and national level, 63 state newspapers in English and eight regional languages, 16 television channels and in order to provide an in depth-analysis of the public discourse on HIV/AIDS and related issues. It enabled us to assess content, understand the messaging, identifying primary spokespersons and identifying the gaps that prevail in the discourse. This tracking also enabled us to assess changes in the quality of coverage, the messaging and to what extent CFAR's interaction with the media had influenced and impacted its coverage of this issue. Over the year 40 national newspapers published 5414 reports and 66 newspapers in six states published 6432 reports.

Simultaneously, CFAR's state and national teams have documented 55 community led prevention initiatives through narratives by community members to understand their contribution to the prevention process by creating links with service providers and functioning as peer models. The aim was to take documentation beyond the realms of monitoring and evaluation to capturing the essence of the intervention- the journey of empowerment of the key population. This was done through extensive narratives were captured by the teams often through repeat visits and interactions with multiple stakeholders. And a piecing together of the various efforts being made to reach out to the women, support them in their daily struggles and persuade them to adopt safe practices, avoid risky encounters and seek STI treatment.

• In Maharashtra, we documented the MSACS intervention with sex workers in Kaij taluk being implemented by Yuvagram, the Mukta (sex worker) intervention being conduct by Pathfinder International in Beed. And the experiences of sex workers with the female and normal condom who are touched by Population Service International's outreach initiatives.
• In Andhra Pradesh we documented interventions in Narsaraopeta and Bapatla for HLFPPT and Gooty in Anantpur district for Alliance. The best practices at the Care and support centers in Krishna district the Shivananda Care and Support centre in Hyderabad and the CBOs of Naarisaksham (Care,Rajahmundry)for its Immersion program.
• In Karnataka we painstakingly documented the various initiatives being implemented by ICHAP and KHPT since 2002. In addition to this we also documented Jeevanjyoti, a district network of PLWHAs and the Chaithanya Mahila Sangha in Mudhol and the Positive Living Centre in Bagalkot. As well as SHGs of sex workers, Stepping Stones and Village Health Committees in several districts of the state.

In the north eastern state of Manipur which is largely hostile to the key populations- sex workers, drug users and MSMs - and the key populations were not willing to speak despite assurances of confidentiality, CFAR had to proceed with caution. For starters we undertook a documentation exercise to understand and contextualize the challenges of working in remote hill areas and using the church to work within closed communities in both Manipur and Nagaland. In Manipur, for instance events like book releases were used to speak about issues relating to PLWHAs and one to one interactions were used with the media to ensure that event based reports also carries strong advocacy messages.

• Similarly in Nagaland International Day Against Drugs was used to bring the media and NGOs together and the stress was on a twin strategy approach of drug demand reduction with supply reduction and on putting hard reduction and HIV prevention efforts within that discourse. This interaction provided CFAR with a platform for beginning issue-based interactions with professionals in Nagaland.

Consequent to this media consultations and site visits by journalists were organized to both states. And five areas were selected for documentation:

1. Developing linkages to reach out to remote populations-it profiles the treatment services and linkages that have been developed by NGOs to ensure that positive recovering users benefited from the full range of services. As also the experiences of people in remote areas who are utilizing these services.
2. Response of faith-based organizations to the challenge of HIV/AIDS- on the leadership provided by the Church in supporting harm reduction efforts and reducing stigma and discrimination against PLWHA. It includes a documentation of the Baptist Council of Churachandpur's decision to permit affected people and recovering drug users to speak of their experiences during Sunday mass. This has also been visually documented by the CFAR team.
3. Marginal communities spearheading prevention efforts- Profiles were done of the manner in which peers were giving other women in sex work information on HIV/AIDS and motivating them to visit drop-in-centers for services.
4. Peer-led harm reduction initiatives- Profile done of Sahara which comprises of recovering drug users who are spearheading a harm reduction effort in Churachandpur.
5. Providing Community Care- Profile of SHALOM this had pioneered care and support for PLWHAs in Manipur under difficult circumstances in Churachandpur.

This documentation was shaped as fact sheets, backgrounders and first person narratives and testimonies and shared with journalists during media site visits, events, press conferences and as support for sharing by the key population.

Training modules were also prepared from the data collected during from the media monitoring to build the capacities of implementing partners and community members to advocate as effective spokespersons. They were trained to deal with the expectations of the media, prepare themselves to advocate on their concerns and highlight the manner in which their work was making a difference to key populations. During the course of this year 92 capacity building workshops were conducted of which 68 were with the community and 24 with NGOs, SLPs and other officials. This enabled us to reach out to no less than 838 community members, 403 project implementers. In all 986 spokespersons interacted with the media and 348 spokespersons were quoted by the media as a result of these efforts.

The media was meanwhile sensitized to the linkages between HIV and development, HIV and the experiences of marginal populations and on a community led approach to HIV/AIDS. Six media sensitization workshops were held at the state level, ten at the district level and 75 journalists were taken on site visits.

Media Support

CFAR also facilitated interactions between the state and district media and partners implementing the projects at the grassroots level through state and district consultations and events organized by the implementing partners and collectives. As well as events organized to commemorate special occasions like International Candlelight Day, world AIDS Day etc. This was done to enable a better understanding of the work being done with vulnerable populations and develop a discourse through media support. No less than 80 events were supported by CFAR resulting in 802 news reports and 338 reports were generated around flagship events of partners.

In Karnataka CFAR provided the entire media support and preparation of community representatives for the site visit to Bagalkot and overnight stay by the state chief Minister in the home of a PLWHAs. It generated no less than 108 reports and opinion pieces across the country. In Maharashtra CFAR provided a platform to FHI to talk about its Aastha project on three separate occasions. In Andhra Pradesh CFAR facilitated media coverage for Aastha-II, Red Ribbon clubs and Be Bold campaigns organized by the APSACS, the State and Regional Police Advocacy Programs hosted by Constella Futures in Hyderabad and Rajahmundry and the Sex Worker's photo exhibition mounted by Alliance.

Similarly, in Tamilnadu CFAR used the opportunity of the Koovagam festival of the Aravanis in May to invite the media to witness the festival, interact with the community and observe the HIV prevention efforts undertaken by SLP-TAI and its partner NGOs. And on Aravanigal Day, which falls in January was used as a forum to facilitate site visits by the national media to interventions in which the community was going beyond HIV prevention and adopting risk reduction and empowering approaches like SHGs, livelihood skill building and community safety nets.