Millions of people throughout Africa remain the victims of protracted crisis, limited resources, social exclusion and broken infrastructures, limiting their possibilities of achieving self reliance. Thus it is imperative that durable solutions be achieved, through developing the capacities of individuals, communities, local organizations, institutions and governments. Only in this way can people truly benefit from humanitarian protection and assistance.

To this end, AHA runs a broad range of capacity development programs, addressing the varying needs of diverse groups of people across Africa. Be it training community health workers in Ethiopia, rehabilitating dams in Sudan or initiating agro-forestry programs in Namibia AHA works to strengthen the capacities of affected populations, promoting self reliance in order to realise effective and long lasting change.

The task cannot be achieved alone and requires engaged and enthusiastic community participation and leadership, along with strong and effective partnerships. For this reason each of our programs is unique to its community, designed, implemented and owned by the people it seeks to empower.  Activities build upon the strengths of a population and are integrated, as far as possible, into existing community infrastructures.

In order to empower a population to realize its own potential AHA seeks to deliver information, education and communication (IEC), hand in hand with practical assistance.  Our IEC program is far reaching and socially inclusive, providing information, offering educational opportunities/training, and raising  awareness/sensitizing people to important issues.  Activities see us working together with both the young and old, dis empowered and powerful, running workshops, training sessions, campaigning, supporting action/support groups and establishing new ones where required.

AHA’s services extend beyond the provision of just advice and training, to guiding individuals and organizations through all of the necessary steps to achieve sustainable results.  Drawing on the skills and abilities of affected populations, AHA recruits 99% of our staff from the communities in which we work.  In this way our programs benefit from essential local knowledge and understanding, whilst the gains of increased employment, opportunity and professional development are ploughed back into a community.

Complementary to AHA’s IEC programs is our work in practically assisting affected populations; ensuring communities have the necessary tools and resources to sustain healthy living. We can often be found rehabilitating and constructing schools, health centers, vocational training centers, dams, irrigation systems, nurseries and agricultural facilities.  Micro-loans are provided, following training programs, to those wishing to develop their economic capacities and start up small businesses. Common enterprises include cooking, gardening, tailoring, knitting, soap-making and hairdressing, amongst other things.

For development to be effective, strengthening the structures, services and programs of local institutions, organisations and governments is critical.  Towards this end AHA supports communities in developing good governance, popular participation, equality, accountability, peer reviewing and effective management, leading to better service provision, stronger coping mechanisms and increased opportunity.  In doing so we seek to reinforce existing structures, integrate new improved services and support innovative measures.  In this way communities are empowered to achieve their own developmental goals, sustain improved living and further

Addressing Physical, Mental and Social Well being

• Health education and trainingHIV/AIDS
• Capacity Development
• Malaria
• Mental Healthcare
• Nutrition Services
• Primary Health Care
• Reproductive Healthcare
• Sexual and Gender-based Violence
• Safe Water and Sanitation

Health is increasingly seen as a key aspect of human security, as diseases linked to poverty accelerate societal breakdown. The World Health Organization  states that “the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition.”

AHA places special emphasis on investing in health to reduce poverty through addressing the physical, mental and social wellbeing of vulnerable populations.  At the heart of our work is community based healthcare, where assisted populations are both partners in and beneficiaries of the services we deliver. We not only care for affected populations but also seek to empower them, by supporting individual health needs and providing training and employment to community health workers. We recruit local doctors, nurses and other healthcare staff and train community members to deliver education and support services.  Through building the capacity of a community to serve its own needs, we enable people to achieve self reliance and sustainable outcomes.

AHA also plays an active role in the Inter-Agency Standing Committee Global Health Cluster, working at both international and country levels as part of the Cluster Leadership Approach, with WHO as the lead agency.

In providing the following services AHA seeks to deliver holistic care to those who need it and make lasting improvements to devastated healthcare systems:

“The most significant demographic impact of HIV occurs in sub-Saharan Africa.” (UNAIDS Global Report 2008)

Fighting HIV/AIDS and other contagious disease is one of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which aim to halve poverty and broadly improve welfare by the year 2015. Yet, this global pandemic has continuously led to as many deaths as those caused by conflict and natural disaster, thereby hampering development.

Currently an estimated 22 million people including about 1.9 million people who were newly infected with HIV in 2007 live with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa. In other words, two thirds (67%) of the global total of 32.9 million people with HIV live in this region and three quarters (75%) of all AIDS deaths occur within African continent.

When people are displaced from their country of origin or within the borders of their respective country, their lives are overturned, social norms are disrupted and access to basic needs becomes difficult.  This has an enormous effect on their lives and the lives of host communities, often bringing a sense of powerlessness, poverty, and social instability.  In such a context the risk of sexually transmitted infection and HIV/AIDS is exacerbated, as people can lack the information, preventatives, treatment, care and support that they need.  Moreover, without having a political voice, displaced populations are easily targeted by the virulent prejudice and stigma associated with HIV/AIDS. According to UNHCR, “the ravages of the HIV epidemic in the refugee camps in terms of social and medical consequences and its death toll outweigh those of any other single disease.”

However this situation is avoidable if the right services are put in place and populations sensitised and equipped to battle the disease.

HIV is a biological entity that is responsive to medical interventions, but the epidemic has continued to expand, largely due to the failure to tackle societal conditions that increase HIV risk and vulnerability. Therefore, AHA works towards solving societal factors that affect HIV risk and vulnerability, including gender inequality and the lack of empowerment of women and girls, discrimination, stigma, and social marginalization.

AHA is dedicated to providing the necessary information and services to enable and empower vulnerable communities to mitigate the impact of HIV/AIDS.  Prevention and community mobilization are key to our work and we run many programs to this end.  Activities include: information, education and communication campaigns (IEC), awareness raising sessions, anti-AIDS clubs, peer education programs, sensitisation campaigns, youth programs, and condom distribution.  To compliment such activities we produce outreach materials, set up resource centres, and host events and support outreach activities such as drama, poetry and music presentations.

As a specialist in healthcare AHA provides communities with a broad spectrum of medical, support and care services, recognizing the physical, social and psychological effects of HIV/AIDS.  We promote and deliver voluntary counselling and testing, prevention of mother to child transmission, reproductive health services, necessary STI/HIV/AIDS treatment, medical referrals and home based care.  We believe that people with AIDS deserve to live as healthy and positive a life as possible and work with individuals and communities to achieve this goal.  We run numerous programs for people living with AIDS, providing training for home based carers (often family members), supporting income generating activities and promoting community awareness and understanding.

The participation of assisted populations and local/community based organizations is essential to AHA, in order to maximise the impact and sustainability of our work.  For this reason much time and effort is spent on capacity development; delivering training, strengthening resources, integrating services and advocating for greater opportunity and empowerment.

Bringing African Voices to Humanitarianism

AHA’s breadth of experience, as well as local knowledge and expertise has led us to play an ever increasing role in global advocacy. We regularly take part in international humanitarian meetings, workshops, and conferences; regrettably, more often than not, as the only southern based representative.

We bring an all important African voice to the otherwise northern dominated international humanitarian field. Confident that Africans have what it takes to deal with the challenges facing the continent, we advocate for:

AHA provides multi-sectoral support in relief and recovery to vulnerable populations throughout Africa; predominantly working with victims of forgotten and protracted crisis.  In such a context, communities – in particular women and girls – face numerous challenges to securing a protective environment.

Our work in relief and recovery addresses such challenges, providing emergency assistance and sustainable development to affected populations. AHA programs are broad and varied in order to respond directly to people’s individual and multifaceted needs.  In working with refugees, IDPs, and returnees across the continent, AHA can commonly be found, amongst other things, providing the following services:

Healthcare: Large population movements and resettlement can pose an increased risk to people’s health, especially those who are vulnerable.  Therefore AHA works hard to provide a high standard of inclusive and easily accessible health care, with clinics, mobile health teams and community health workers servicing the needs of hundreds of thousands of people every year.  Find out more about AHA Health Care.

HIV/AIDS: The disease continues to be a major killer throughout Africa, with approximately 6,000 people dying each day and millions more adversely affected.  Risks are exacerbated in a refugee/displaced persons setting, where social, community and family norms that govern sexual behavior are disrupted.  In response, AHA activities are diverse, holistic, and far reaching; incorporating treatment, care/support and prevention, with a heavy emphasis on the latter.  In doing so, we aim to provide the necessary information and services to enable and empower vulnerable communities to mitigate the impact of the disease.  Find out more about our work 0n HIV/AIDS.

Food Distribution and Nutrition: Many refugees/IDPs can find themselves forced to settle in areas that are resource scarce and/or lacking the infrastructure for food growth or provision. Therefore, AHA works to ensure all camp residents are provided with essential nutritional support.  In addition, our nutrition centers offer supplementary feeding, therapeutic feeding, and basket monitoring activities, as necessary.  Looking to the future, we also assist in providing sustainable measures like setting up gardens/nurseries, delivering training, providing necessary equipment, and supporting new industry.

Water and Sanitation: In resource scarce areas a safe and adequate water supply, along with good sanitation, can quite literally mean the difference between life and death, economic success or failure and good or bad community relations.  Therefore AHA provides a full range of environmental services, ensuring a clean and accessible water supply and good sanitation facilities.  Affected populations are further informed and educated in the practise of good environmental health and fully participate in implementing measures against waterborne and other diseases.

Shelter: When people arrive at Refugee/IDP camps, homeless and in need of assistance, shelter provision is of high priority and can reduce the level of trauma experienced.  At AHA sites people are provided with tents upon arrival, and when space becomes available they are supplied with materials and assisted with the construction of their own homes.

Transport and Logistics: A number of camps are located in areas undergoing crisis, placing huge pressure on the organization of transport and logistics.  It is not unusual that roads become impassable due to adverse weather conditions and/or violence and necessary items become difficult to secure.  However AHA is adept and experienced at ensuring the safe movement of people (arrivals/returnees/repatriates) and necessary supplies, by managing storage and distribution and responding innovatively to challenges that arise.

Protection: This is first and foremost a preventative activity, safeguarding vulnerable populations from imminent harm and averting recurrent harm.  It works in conjunction with assistance activities, which seek to help people recover once harm has been done.  AHA programs address protection in the widest sense of the term as demonstrated by our relief and recovery activities, but also tackle specific protection issues as exemplified by our work in Sudan.

Community Development: In all AHA activities we employ a participatory approach, assisting populations in recognizing, mobilizing and building upon their resilience, resources, and capacities.  Community, self-help and interest based groups are encouraged and supported, along with entertainment and awareness raising events. Camp residents are further supported in developing their own capacities through training, provision of equipment and micro-loans.  Founded upon dialogue and partnership, our work aims to reinforce people’s dignity and self esteem, strengthen their self reliance, and empower them to take control of their immediate futures.