In October 2009, Diakonia Agapes started the project “Promoting Voluntary and Confidential Counseling and Testing among Elbasan women”, as a continuation of its projects that aim to improve the Albanian women health status.
The area of implementation includes villages of Elbasan, Gramsh and Librazhd.
Aiming to increase the awareness of the community about HIV/AIDS and the importance of the voluntary counseling and testing, the activities of this project are focused on women and girls of this area.
A team composed of medical personnel, social workers and counselors travels in the targeted villages and meets with interested women and girls. The meetings organized in cooperation with the medical personnel of the villages, inform the participants about the HIV/AIDS epidemics and the HIV testing and counseling importance.
For those interested, confidential counseling séances and HIV testing are offered.
Since the project started, around 350 women have participated in the informative meetings and around 200 of them have done the rapid HIV testing.
Informative brochures about HIV/AIDS were distributed to the participants. In order to raise the awareness of the community, distribution of leaflets and posters takes place in the area.
This project is funded by Fondation PH – Suisse – Partnerships in Health and will continue until the end of March 2010.
