Repsol YPF

Trinidad y Tobago Red Cross HIV/AIDS Programme

I. Description

The Trinidad and Tobago Red Cross established the Office of the HIV/AIDS Programme in November, 2003. 

From 2003 to 2005, the programme developed the following components, financed by REPSOL YPF, DFID (Britain’s Department for International Development) and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies: 

• “Together, We Can” Trinidad and Tobago: youth education among peers.   
• Project LIFE – Preventing Mother-to-Child Transmission (co-financed by REPSOL). 
• Communication Series on HIV/AIDS (financed by REPSOL).  
• Campaigns to raise social awareness.     

At present, Repsol YPF continues working with the Trinidad and Tobago Red Cross towards the following objectives: 

• Strengthen and foster HIV/AIDS prevention.  
• Train volunteers in providing updated HIV/AIDS information to the public as well as other information related to health. 
• Sensitize Red Cross personnel to all health topics. 
• Equip the departments with suitable audio-visual material to facilitate the tasks of education and sensitization. 
• Develop self-financing plans.    

A) “Together We Can” Trinidad and Tobago: peer-to-peer youth education 

By means of this initiative, young people are sensitised to this problem, how the disease is transmitted, prevention systems, the consequences of stigmatising, etc. It is other young people (peer education) who are giving the classes.

This project has been developing with notable success in other Caribbean countries under the name "Together We Can". 

B) Project LIFE – Preventing Mother-to-Child Transmission

This is a project based on the collaboration between Mt. Hope Hospital and the community. The Ministry of Health, the North-Centre Regional Authority, and the Trinidad and Tobago Red Cross are involved.  

Group aims: pregnant women from Trinidad's West-East corridor Mt. Hope Hospital’s prenatal clinic.  

Objectives: 

• Help reduce mother-to-child transmission
• Effectively use voluntary service as the main engine to adults' education and learning.    

The project offers advice to pregnant women at the clinic about the benefits and risks of taking HIV/ AIDS tests during pregnancy. The intention is to get a higher number of women to voluntarily take the test, thus reducing the number of mother-to-Child transmission cases. 

Approximately 900 women were sensitized. 60 women voluntarily took the test form during the period of implementation of the project and 10 HIV-positive women received counselling after the test. 

C) HIV/AIDS Communication Series 

This is an education Initiative, with printed and audio-visual means, directed all the sectors of the population and financed entirely by REPSOL YPF. 

Objectives: 

• To provide HIV/AIDS education aimed all the sectors of the population.
• To improve the ability of the Trinidad and Tobago Red Cross to use printed, electronic and audio-visual means in their programmes. 
• To improve the visibility of Trinidad and Tobago Red Cross programmes.    

The project received support from an advertising company that developed a series of newspaper, radio and television commercials. With these resources, a Massive Campaign was developed. It was divided into 2 campaigns: Carnival 2005 and Anti-Stigma and Discrimination. 

During the 2005 and 2006 Carnival campaign: there were 590 radio spots, 24 television spots and press printings. 

D) Public Awareness Campaigns

Trinidad and Tobago Red Cross lacked the necessary volunteers to carry out this project, so they carried out public awareness campaigns that, in turn, helped recruit volunteers for the projects.

II. Results

An internal evaluation of the project was carried out. Its main results are outlined: 

• Appropriateness (how suitable the project is for the institution’s priorities, to the needs and problems and to public policies): The fight against the HIV/AIDS is one of the Millennium Development Goals and one of the priorities for both the Government of Trinidad and Tobago and the Trinidad and Tobago Red Cross. The project made efforts to extend coverage to the highest number of people possible, focusing on women, who are a high priority in this respect. 
• Effectiveness (fulfilment of objectives and foreseen results): the project improved and extended the prevention activities of the Trinidad and Tobago Red Cross, contributing to the expansion and consolidation of a network of volunteers and testing services.  
• Efficiency (cost-benefit ratio): the project combined its own resources and public resources (epidemiological follow-up and of conduct, research, evaluation ...). The coordination among several actors and the complement of both public and private resources helped these resources get used efficiently. The efforts of the project focused on promoting behaviour changes among high-risk groups and vulnerable people. It also focused on taking early action where the epidemic has not yet appeared. The project fostered access to low cost educational programmes for internal and external patients of Mt. Hope Hospital. The project could have made better use of the chance to extend the program to geographical areas with low HIV/AIDS rates, in order to show good prevention practices that lead to such low rates.
• Impact on Institution Development: the project helped to improve the managerial and technical capacity of the Trinidad and Tobago Red Cross to strengthen its leadership and its actions of law and coordination in the fight against HIV/AIDS.