Ready++

Adolescents constitute 22% of India’s total population and there are 0.27 million adolescent and young people living with HIV registered in our Vihaan programme (source: Vihaan CMIS). An analysis of HIV counselling data under the national programme for 2016 indicated that 24% of all newly detected HIV infections were among young people in the age group of 15-24 years (National strategic plan document NACO).

Adolescents of all ages and gender including sexual minority need to have comprehensive knowledge on their sexual health rights and responsibilities. This will empower them to lead a healthy and dignified life and enable them to deal with difficult circumstances.

The project is embedded into our existing Vihaan programme that provides support in mobilizing, supervising and advocacy to the peer champions of Ready++ project. The pilot project was started in five states covering 20 districts of Manipur, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Delhi.

Within a short period of three months, October to December 2018, the pilot project achieved more than the set deliverables and demonstrated that the youth were willing to take control of things concerning their health and catalyse change among their peers. The project conducted state-level training and identified peer champions in each district who in turn disseminated the crucial knowledge through one to one, group meetings and WhatsApp groups.

Project Results (April 2018 to March 2019)

• 145 Adolescents and youth trained
• 20 Peer champions identified and trained
• 1280 Adolescents and youth reached by peer champions