Regional HIV/AIDS Alliance affects behavioural change in St. Kitts-Nevis

ZIZ News…February 13, 2010 – A regional HIV/AIDS organization is looking to set up a bi-directional referral networking system between the twin island federations of St. Kitts and Nevis.

The Caribbean HIV/AIDS Alliance was established in the federation one year ago and is now gearing up to implement a number of major outreach and sensitization projects.

Nadine Kassie is one of the program organizers working in the St. Kitts-Nevis sub-office. She says the alliance also employ cutting edge methods of peer outreach; one such strategy is introducing HIV/AIDS animators to work with the alliance.

“We have what we term animators but they are really peer educators. They go out into the communities but what makes it cutting edge is that they belong to the communities themselves. The alliance works with three main communities: men who have sex with men; sex workers and people living with HIV/AIDS. The community animators belongs to these groups so because of the links that they have in those communities, its easy for them to access people who would have been hard to reach.

Ms Kassie told ZIZ News that they provide “information, animators conduct behavioral change interventions and commodities are distributed to help them make right choices with their sexual health.”