YouthAIDS
AIDSMark



PSI/India


Program
Focus:
HIV/AIDS, reproductive health, child survival

Target
Regions:
PSI's social marketing activities span 22 States and Union Territories throughout India as well as the national highway system. These interventions include extensive work on HIV/AIDS/STIs, maternal and child health, and family planning social marketing campaigns.

Target
Population:

 

HIV/AIDS: high risk groups such as informal and formal port workers, commercial sex workers and their clients, as well as truckers and their assistants

Maternal and child health: children, parents of young children, and women of reproductive age

Family planning: families, women of reproductive age and their husbands


2006 Estimated Health Impact:

Unintended pregnancies averted: 876,000 (explained)

* numbers reflect programs which are not nationwide


Products:





 

Rishta female condom since 2005

ACT 1 STI kit since 2004

Preventol emergency contraception since 2004

Key Clinic Network of physicians providing improved STI services since 2004

Safewat
safe water system since 2002

Vitalet-Preg iron-folic acid since 2002

New Born clean delivery kits since 2002

Saadhan voluntary counseling and HIV testing centers since 2002

Depo-Provera injectable contraceptives since 2001

KamaSutra condoms since 2000

Neotral Orange oral rehydration solution since 1998

Masti condoms since 1998

Mala-D oral contraceptives since 1997

Neotral
oral rehydration solution since 1995

Pearl oral contraceptives since 1991

Deluxe Nirodh condoms since 1988


Local
Collaboration:

PSI collaborates widely in the development and implementation of its social marketing programs. PSI works closely with the central government, especially NACO and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to develop good policy for support of behavior change programming. At state and district level our leadership works closely with Commissioners for Health and the State AIDS Control Societies. Community-based organizations and other NGOs are important partners in the deepening and increased reach of social marketing interventions and linkages to key services such as Care and Support for those affected by HIV/AIDS. In its rural programs for promotion of birth spacing and good maternal/child health practices, PSI forms partnerships with Panchayat Raj Institutions, with local medical providers and with retailers who carry and promote PSI products.


Current
Donors:

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

British Department for International Development (DFID)

The Federal Republic of Germany through KfW Entwicklungsbank (the German development bank)

Government of India, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Contraceptive Social Marketing Programme

The Hewlett Foundation

The Packard Foundation

State Innovations in Family Planning Services Agency

United States Agency for International Development (USAID)


U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention


Project Activities and Highlights
PSI/India's Family Health Program (FHP) is improving the health of underserved communities in eight states of India through programs that reduce unintended pregnancies, decrease maternal and child mortality and morbidity and slow the spread of HIV/AIDS.

HIV/AIDS

• The Family Health Program
FHP works to slow the spread of HIV/AIDS through a project to promote condom use in West Bengal and Orissa. PSI/India raise sawareness of HIV/AIDS and increase the acceptability of condom use among high-risk groups, including truckers, commercial sex workers and migrant laborers and their families. Communication activities include condom use demonstrations, folk shows, video shows and interactive games followed by question and answer sessions and billboards that normalize condom use and debunk misconceptions about condoms. The program ensures the availability of quality, affordable condoms in places that are frequented by the high-risk groups and also in rural areas which otherwise lack access to reliable condoms.
• Operation Lighthouse (OPL)
(OPL) deploys a set of integrated communication, advocacy and service provision strategies to decrease the spread of the HIV/AIDS epidemic among vulnerable groups, focusing activities in 12 major port communities in India. In order to prevent HIV/AIDS, OPL focuses on desired behaviour change outcomes in the areas of increased condom usage, partner reduction, increased STI treatment and increased usage of voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) services. The program includes targeted communication activities, mobile or conveniently-located VCT facilities for vulnerable populations, and a ground-breaking mass media campaign targeted to men in Mumbai.

Three principles guide the OPL approach:
Targeting — When achieved, targeting allocates scarce resources to activities that promise the highest impact among those likely to contract and transmit the virus. This concept is upheld in designing all of OPL's activities, from communications to counseling.

Integration — In an integrated approach mass media, mid-media and inter-personal communications are designed to inform, motivate and create demand for services and products, which include phone help-lines, STI and VCT services and condoms.

Information — Changing behavior is an iterative process, demanding an ever-expanding base of knowledge across a wide range of topics, including beliefs and habits, socio-cultural characteristics affecting gender and empowerment, patterns of migration and sexual behavior. Over time, steady production, analysis and use of good information feeds into continuous program improvement.

•

Social Marketing and Social Franchising as Part of the AVAHAN Program
PSI/India implements a five year program to promote safer sexual practices and good STI treatment-seeking among male clients of sex workers in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. In addition, PSI is making condoms easily available, affordable and well-promoted along national highways.

The core of PSI’s contribution to this program is its intensive communication, franchising and distribution activities in 100 carefully selected locations where HIV prevalence and risk behavior is known to be highest. We estimate that our activities will reach over 5 million clients of sex workers in these areas. Rigorous monitoring and evaluation will measure regularly the effectiveness of the project in bringing about consistent condom use, correct STI treatment seeking and patronage of Key Clinics.

•

Mumbai HIV/AIDS Targeted Intervention
PSI/India's HIV/AIDS prevention activities target the high-risk behavior groups of sex workers, their clients, and long-haul truck drivers at major termini and along national highways. The Mumbai project works intensively with 6,000 sex workers in “red-light” areas of Mumbai and vast numbers of men at risk.

PSI/India's Mumbai project includes four integrated components: personal contact with sex workers; reaching male clients; social marketing of condoms; and a medical and rehabilitation center. The latter is located in the heart of the red light district and provides a variety of medical services, including treatment of STDs and tuberculosis, referrals to hospitals and well-baby care. The rehabilitation center provides employment opportunities for the sex workers outside of the brothels, skills training, help with opening bank accounts, and literacy classes.

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Reproductive Health

• Family Planning
FHP recognizes that a couple's ability to determine the number and timing of their children is an integral part of maternal and child health. PSI/India works to increase the practice of birth spacing by creating informed demand and providing a reliable supply of quality, affordable contraceptive products in eight states in Northern India: Masti condoms and Pearl oral contraceptive pills are made available in over 1,600 towns and over 57,800 villages through the distribution network of 980 stockists and 275-strong sales force in the eight states.
• PSI/India is addressing a key gap in India’s population program – the adoption of birth spacing contraceptive methods by men and women in rural areas. Current initiatives raise awareness and confidence in the methods and benefits of birth spacing, and increase social support for the use of condoms and pills through mass media, wall art, folk shows, video shows, interactive games and women's group meetings in 3,268 villages in rural Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhatisgarh.
•

PSI/India's mobile nukkad-natak (street theatre) teams and video vans have crisscrossed 11 districts in rural Jharkhand, reaching over 4,000 villages with key messages on the why, when and how of birth spacing.

•

In the state of Rajasthan, which has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in India, and where 350,000 induced abortions are recorded per year, PSI/India implements a social marketing project for emergency contraception (EC). The project raises awareness of EC through billboards, press advertisements and community outreach; it improves access to EC through regular detailing of doctors and chemists; and it promotes a supportive policy and social environment for EC in collaboration with other health organizations in India.

•

Maternal Health
The Family Health Program markets several nutritional products designed to safeguard the health of women and children. These include Vitalet PREG, an iron- folic acid supplement to prevent anemia among pregnant women and are marketed in some of India's highest-need states: Rajasthan, Uttaranchal, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhatisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Orissa.

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Child Survival

•

Safe Water
Diarrheal disease is one of the leading causes of early childhood mortality in India, where many families lack access to clean drinking water. FHP is working to lower the incidence of diarrheal diseases and related child mortality through a program that covers coastal districts in the state of Orissa and selected urban slums in the state of Uttaranchal. This initiative aims to increase local knowledge of proper drinking water practices and their impact on health, and to provide improved access to water disinfectant. A comprehensive behavior change campaign, consisting of radio and television ads, street theater, wall paintings and product use demonstrations is timed to coincide with the rainy season, when risk of water contamination is highest. PSI/India's brand of water disinfectant, Safewat, is sold in a 100-ml plastic bottle, sufficient to create 1000 liters of safe drinking water.

•

Child Nutrition
The Family Health Program markets several nutritional products designed to safeguard the health of women and children. These products include Neotral, oral rehydration salts for the treatment of diarrheal disease in children.

 

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PSI/India's network of Saadhan voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) centers provide professional and discreet services. Mobile VCT vans target hard-to-reach groups such as commerical sex workers and truckers.

Multimedia

MPG 6.6MB
Balbir Pasha video spot
(right-click and "save target as...")

• Reuters News Services features report on the Sangini Women's Co-operative Society bank

Resources

• News: Mumbai-Based Group of Sex Workers Given UN award

• Annual Report: 2007 Avahan Annual Report

• Fact Sheet: Safe Water in Schools

• PDF 261K
Reaching Sex Workers, Rural Populations with Mobile VCT

• PDF 394K
India's Operation Lighthouse: Breaking the Mold on Traditional HIV/AIDS Behavior Change Approaches

• PDF 260K
Birth Spacing: Giving Families More Room To Breathe

• PDF 283K
Balbir Pasha: HIV/AIDS Campaign Is the Talk of Mumbai

• PDF 1.47MB
USAID Success Story: HIV/AIDS Awareness Campaign Dispels Common Misconceptions Surrounding Methods of Infection

• PDF 1.86MB
USAID Success Story: High-Risk Populations in India Get Tested for HIV; High-Quality Clinics Help Reduce HIV Transmission

• PDF 1.1MB
Case Study: Will Balbir Pasha Get AIDS?

• Commercial Sex Workers on Front Line of Bombay AIDS Battle

Website

www.psi.org.in

www.psi.org.in/avahan.htm
Targeted site for male clients of sex workers


Contact Info

 
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