Youth line up for HIV tests at USAID-backed center

The youth of Guédiawaye learn the importance of HIV/AIDS and its key messages of abstinence, being faithful to one partner, using contraceptives, and being tested for HIV. Photo by R. Nyberg, USAID

Behind the dust from a football game in the sand lies the public-sector Guédiawaye Youth Center. Here, a local non-governmental organization (NGO) has integrated AIDS voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) services into the center’s mix of activities and services targeting the constantly growing youth population. Once inside the youth center, one passes boys and girls practicing kung fu in the big hall, and then a smaller group of girls, plaiting each other’s hair. Under the shady tree covering the central courtyard, young people from all around Dakar’s sprawling and densely populated suburb of Guédiawaye await their turn to see the counselor.

This is a typical day at the Guédiawaye youth center where USAID/Senegal collaborated with Synergie pour l’Enfance in 2003 to begin offering youth-friendly testing and counseling services. Since then, partnerships with NGOs, other donors, and community groups have taken root and expanded the range of related activities to include Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission (PMTCT) and a “continuum of care” bundle of interventions to respond to the prevention, treatment, and care and support needs of youth and their families.

Youth-specific VCT centers, when tried elsewhere, have often been found to be unsuccessful in getting young people to show up for testing, but this one seems to be working. “I think the success resides in the integration of activities, which minimizes the stigma around testing for HIV,” commented Dr. Ngagne Mbaye, Synergie’s Coordinator. “We have the VCT center within an adolescent reproductive health center, which is in turn a component of a large adolescent center where youth come for cultural activities, sports, or informal training in things like sewing. And nobody knows who’s coming for what.”

This has encouraged youth to get tested. From January through November 2005, the center has counseled and tested 827 Senegalese youth for HIV/AIDS, up from 485 in 2003. VCT is one of the many ways by which Senegal and its partners are working hard to maintain a low HIV prevalence; the national prevalence among adults is 0.7%, one of the lowest in Sub-Saharan Africa. Other components of prevention include promoting safe sexual practices to reduce HIV transmission, strengthening blood safety, improving the treatment for other sexually-transmitted infections, and PMTCT. USAID and other U.S. government partners have long supported the Government of Senegal in these areas.

At every step in the process of expansion of services deeper into the communities who need them most, Synergie remains true to its name, always seeking to move forward in synergy with other actors to ensure the comprehensive response necessary to win the battle against AIDS. The innovative model that Synergie has developed with support from USAID for integrating HIV counseling and testing services within the public sector youth centers has been officially adopted by the Ministry of Youth and is currently being replicated in eight other centers with funding from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), and USAID.