Three people involved in fighting for the critical changes outlined in the Liu Lathu Mu COP21, Ellen, Winnie and Monica, are sharing their stories and their prescriptions for change in order to show PEPFAR, and the government of Malawi, what it means to interact with the current, failing healthcare system, and why the changes activists are demanding in COP21 are urgently needed.
The Ritshidze project today released a new website with resource toolkits on how it uses community-led monitoring to improve the quality of HIV and TB service delivery. Ritshidze — one of the most extensive community-led clinic monitoring systems — was developed by networks of People Living with HIV in South Africa to hold government and aid agencies to account to fix our broken public healthcare system.
Activists in Malawi have outlined a number of community-recommended interventions that would improve the state of the national HIV and TB response, including measures to help people to start and stay on treatment. Two people involved in fighting for these critical changes, Chimwemwe and Alinafe*, are sharing their stories on this photo essay.
Thanks to community-led monitoring in South Africa, we now have the data to back up the stories we have all heard about – early morning queues that last all day long when clinics fail to open on time and then also close early, writes Anele Yawa and Lotti Rutter.
The theme of this year’s World AIDS Day is “Communities make the difference”, an idea that underpins a new model of community-led clinic monitoring in South Africa — “Ritshidze” has been developed by people living with HIV and activists to hold both the South African government and international donors accountable to improve overall HIV and TB service delivery.
Thakane is living with her only son in Welkom, South Africa. One day when she arrived at the clinic, she was told that her usual HIV medicines were out of stock. Instead she was given alternatives that were difficult to take and gave her many side effects. Watch her explain her story in this video.
Shadreck lives in Mangochi, Malawi and each time he needs to pick up his HIV medicines or see a healthcare worker, he has to walk six hours in both directions from his home. Watch him explain his story in this video.