Role & Contributions of East Godavari and Krishna DAPCUs of AP in Supporting CABA Project

Supporting the CABA project – Facilitating benefits for children and families affected by HIV

In order to provide a special focus to children affected by HIV , the National Scheme For Community – Based Coordinated Protection, Care and Support Services for Children Affected By HIV/AIDS (CABA) was piloted in 10 “A” Category Districts.This  is a joint initiative of the National AIDS Control Organization (NACO) and  Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD). At the district level CABA is managed by DAPCU and District Lead Action Agency (DLAA, usually an NGO). This note provides a broad description of the project and achievement of two districts in AP with regard to the scheme.  DAPCU teams understand the efforts that can be made for children and their families infected or affected and take similar steps in their districts involving the NGOs and district administration.

India has the third largest number of people in the world living with HIV/AIDS, and based on HIV Sentinel Surveillance 2008-09, it is estimated that India has an adult prevalence of 0.31 percent with 23.9 lakh people infected with HIV, of which, 39 percent are women and 3.5 percent are children. 79,719 children living with HIV/AIDS are registered and 22,837 children are on antiretroviral therapy (NACO –Annual Report 2010-11). 

 

Children from families affected by HIV require a special focus as often the burden of care falls on them leading them to drop out of school and take up work. The National Scheme for Community – Based Coordinated Protection, Care and Support Services for Children Affected by HIV/AIDS (CABA) was designed to address the needs of these children.

The scheme was piloted in 10 A category districts of the country. The purpose of this scheme has been to ensure “access to the different services by Children” affected by HIV/AIDS (CABA) through “coordination and establishment of linkages” with various existing service providers at all levels within Government and Non-Government sectors.  

Table 1 – CABA Details
	East Godavari	Krishna
Number of Children Living with HIV	1,111	1359
Number of Affected Children	12,312	5829
Total number of Children	13423	7188
Number of Single Orphan Children	5,679	2723
Number of Double Orphan Children	1200	887

In Andhra Pradesh, the scheme was piloted in East Godavari and Krishna Districts as part of the national project. Both districts have been able to meet 80% of the needs for support identified among CABA families as well as orient and sensitize a large number of stakeholders and frontline workers from line department. These districts were allocated staff through the District Lead Action Agency - 1 Project Coordinator and 1 Mainstreaming and Training Officer. This staff were placed in the DAPCU office in these districts and expected to undertake the following major activities in coordination with DAPCUs– (a) Conduct District Situation Assessment, (b) developing prioritization plan and baseline data, (c) Coordinate with allied departments for trainings and mainstreaming activities as well as (d) Conduct District Coordination Meetings.

The situational analysis of the two districts provided the following information about the number of children affected by CABA and the extent of their vulnerability (Table 1). The health, psychosocial, educational and social protection needs of the affected children and their families were periodically assessed in these districts. Active efforts by the CABA team and DAPCU teams ensured that a majority of support required by families and children infected and affected by HIV were catered to through government services, social benefit schemes as well as private donations and sponsorships.   In over 17,000 instances families /children were linked to services required by them. The details regarding needs identified vs. linkages made are provided in the Table 2

Table 2-  Linking CABA to Services
	East Godavari		Krishna
Name of Key Services	No. of unmet needs identified with respect to the specific services.	No of Children/families linked to schemes	No. of unmet needs identified with respect to the specific services.	No of Children/families linked to schemes
Health/medical	8301	6449	6879	5373
Nutrition	2364	7604	1172	1366
Psychosocial	7024	2958	429	374
Education	12637	9046	148	40
Social Protection	13922	9828	590	345
Alternative Care	1226	192	193	118
Legal  Redressal	3	3	24	7

As discussed above mainstreaming has been an integral part of the CABA activities and the project aimed to orient all stakeholders on HIV and sensitize them to the needs of CABA. To ensure a larger coverage many sensitization programmes were undertaken in a cascade model with centralized Training of Trainers for select representatives who then conducted similar trainings for their peers and subordinates in their respective departments. Over 35,000 stakeholders were sensitized across these two districts.

SL.No	Table 3 – Details of Mainstreaming Achievements
	Name of the Unit	Name of the department	No of staff oriented
			East Godavari	Krishna
1	ASHA	Health /NRHM	3860	2100
	ANM		1475	1760
	MO PHC		162	151
2	AWW	ICDS	3978	1431
	AWW(Supervisors)		137	110
	CDPOs		21	20
3	CWC members	ICPS	5	7
	ICPS Staff		8	8
4	Teachers &Principals	Education	15,512	2509
	MEOs		60	45
5	Counsellors-ART,ICTC,PPTCT	DAPCU/SACS	119	55
	CCC+BSY+ORWs		207	33
6	District Level Officers	All Departments	90	83
7	Police	Police Dept.	263	105
8	Mandala Samakya Members	DRDA/IKP	120	74
9	DPMOs & APMOs	NLEP	75	60
10	Bank managers (SBI & Andhra)	Various Banks	20	22
11	H.CRPs	MEPMA	280	74

What was the role played by DAPCUs in the successes of these CABA projects? 

Coordination with District Administration: The DAPCUs in both districts work in close coordination with the district administration. This familiarity could be leveraged by the CABA project for smooth rolling out of their activities and objectives, especially with respect to mainstreaming activities and social benefit schemes. The identified needs and list of beneficiaries requiring support were presented through the DAPCU to different departments like WCD, BC&SC Corporation, District Rural Development Authority (DRDA), Mission for Elimination of Poverty in Municipal Areas (MEPMA) Education Dept.) etc. Additionally the District Coordination Meetings were also convened through the active engagement of DAPCUs.

Identifying local resources: The DAPCUs were also instrumental in supporting the CABA team in identifying local resources and private donations. For instance in East Godavari through the persistent efforts of the DAPCU the then District officer’s welfare association members sponsored 128 children for education, nutrition and health needs.  

Supervision and Mentoring of the CABA team: The CABA team was routinely working in coordination with the DAPCU and like other facilities under NACP, the CABA project was also supervised, monitored and reviewed by the DAPCU team.

Even in districts where there is no CABA project, the DAPCU teams adopt similar strategies for mainstreaming and leveraging resources at the district to make, social benefit schemes of govt. and non-govt. agencies available to families infected or affected with HIV/AIDS. The district level networks also play a crucial role in identifying the families and children and linking them to services through DAPCU facilitation. 

For further information on the above experiences Mr Adilingam, DPM East Godavari (9177103177, egddpm@gmail.com) and Mr Kiran Panditi, DPM Krishna (9177103186, krisdpm@gmail.com) may be contacted. Other DAPCU teams are encouraged to share their experiences on facilitating social benefit schemes for PLHIV and HRGs by developing their case studies and sending it to dapcunaco@gmail.com.