Since the mid 1990s, ACI has worked to raise awareness of the impact of HIV/AIDS on educational systems in West African countries (Benin, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, and Senegal). Through advocacy and policy dialogue, ACI has influenced governmental agencies and administrators, while at the same time working at the grassroots level with local NGOs and community based organizations.

Ghana (2002)
"The HIV and Development workshop organized by ACI for World Education/Ghana in August, 2002 served as a seminal event in awakening the Ministry of Education to the critical role that the MoE has in stemming the spread of HIV/AIDS and the havoc that HIV/AIDS can wreak on the education sector. For the first time, the eyes of senior Directors of the Ministry were opened to the possibility that they themselves (and their loved ones) could be at-risk for HIV infection. The Wildfire exercise, followed by a testimony from people living with HIV/AIDS, was a transformational process for every individual in the workshop. Not only did these three days open doors for further research, programming, and policy formulation within the Ministry and Ghana Education Service, it also paved the way for the development of an entire curriculum for use at all Teacher Training Colleges in the country. Indeed, the ACI HIV and Development Modules - Basic Facts, Impact and Responses - have served as a foundational guide for the work of World Education, local civil society organizations, and the Ministry of Education's newly formed HIV/AIDS Secretariat. A year and a half later, that workshop remains one of the most important and memorable for those in senior positions in the education sector"
John Yanulis
Director, World Education, Accra, Ghana (2004)

Mali and Guinea (2001 and 2002)
ACI provided extensive HIV and Development Training and Training of Trainers for the World Education staffs in both these countries. The trainings led to the implementation of innovative HIV/AIDS awareness-raising programs involving local NGOs and community-based associations, as well as Parent-Teachers Associations, confederations and community schools. In Guinea, working in collaboration with the Peace Corps, ACI promoted the creation of GVS (Groupe Vie Saine), a local NGO specializing in HIV and Development and Life Skills Training that has provided quality training for both education and other community based projects.

The Gambia 2001 and 2003
ACI designed and facilitated HIV and Development Training programs for government officials and HIV/AIDS focal points in Government Ministries- including Education - in The Gambia. These programs, organized in collaboration with the National AIDS Control Programme and the National AIDS Secretariat have significantly raised awareness of AIDS and Education issues in that country.

HIV/AIDS and Education Activities in Senegal

As the direct result of one of a series of HIV and Development training workshops organized by ACI for opinion leaders in Senegal under the AIDSCAP Project in 1996, UDEN, a major national teacher's unions, allocated funds and organized a three-day National workshop in April, 1996 on HIV/AIDS training and production of teaching materials for about 50 of their members from all over Senegal.

Through its Poles of Excellence program , ACI has provided on-going skills building for many Senegalese NGOs working in the field of HIV/AIDS and adolescent reproductive health education in Senegal. These have included:

Those working in formal education, such as the Association des Professeurs de Sciences Naturelles (APSN) in the Lycée Djignabo in Ziguinchor, the Groupement pour l'Etude et l'Enseignement de la population (GEEP) (which organizes and supports Family Life Education clubs (EVF) in over 100 lycées across the country), YMCA in-school and out-of-school adolescent reproductive health activities, and SIDA-Service, one of the pioneers in HIV/AIDS education in Senegal's Catholic and Public Schools.

Those working primarily in French and national language literacy and community schools such as Association Nationale pour le Bien Etre de la Population (ANBEP), the Association pour la Renaissance du Pulaar (ARP), Cercle d'Etude et de Recherches en Espace Mandingue (CEREM), Projet PAPA for publishing national language materials on reproductive health issues, and, next door in Mali, with the Institution de l'Education Populaire (IEP) of Katy.

Also through Poles of Excellence, in April of 2003, ACI's caseworker for the Region of Kaolack, Abdoulaye Konaté worked closely with Japanese volunteers involved in promoting health education in the primary schools. Konaté trained seven primary school teachers, including the school director and Arabic teachers, in a tiny outlying village of Ker Gamou. Following the initial training, elementary school teachers from all the surrounding villages came to the larger town of Dinguiraye to receive training. This led to the inclusion of an HIV/AIDS component in the primary schools in that zone. Other Japanese volunteers from the same program but working elsewhere in Senegal (in Kaolack and Fatick) attended the workshop so that they, in turn, could institute similar activities with their primary school teachers.

ACI Director Gary Engelberg co-taught an innovative one-year HIV and Development course with anthropologist Alice Morton for second year African students at the Dakar campus of Suffolk University (Academic year 2002-2003). ACI also regularly offers sessions on HIV/AIDS in Africa, Come Home Healthy, and HIV and Development for students in the ACI Baobab Center's Study Abroad Programs for American Universities.

Innovative HIV-AIDS and Education Activities in West Africa: MTT/West (2003-2005)

In 2003, USAID requested that ACI design, implement and manage a new West African group called MTT (Mobile Task Team), based on a successful model developed in Southern Africa. It involved gathering a group of West African experts who would be assisting Ministries of Education in the sub-region to integrate HIV into the planning and management of their programs. The various Ministries responsible for Education have often drawn up and implemented minor and sometimes major action plans without having laid the necessary foundations or having developed a context for comprehensive, long-term planning of the response.

MTT/West assisted USAID Missions and Ministries of Education in strategic and implementation planning to prevent and mitigate the impact of HIV/AIDS in the education sector. MTT/West participated in Education Sector capacity building workshops with MTT/South, the World Bank, UNICEF, and other partners. It developed collaboration with the West and Central African Education research network (ROCARE/ERNWACA) and explored partnerships with the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) and IIEP/UNESCO in Paris. The MTT/West worked through USAID missions to develop support programs for Ministries of education in Benin, Guinea, Mali, and Senegal.

As part of its mission, MTT/West published A Guide to Financial and Technical Resources, available to the Education Sector in Senegal, Mali, Guinea and Ghana. Click here to access these guides in English or in French. Its creation was supported with funds from the United States President’s Africa Education Initiative.

Following the MTT experience, in 2005-2006, ACI continued to work in close collaboration with Creative Associates to strengthen the HIV/AIDS Focal Unit of the Beninese Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education in developing a systemic response to the epidemic.

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