USAID Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean: Success Stories: A Workshop With Althea

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Friday, May 25, 2012

A Workshop With Althea

Althea poses with workshop attendants.

Althea is a Community Animator with the Caribbean HIV & AIDS Alliance (CHAA). A former dancer herself, Althea has worked with CHAA for four years reaching out to migrant sex workers in Antigua and helping them to make safer sex choices through one on one and group behaviour change interventions. Althea is also a trained HIV counsellor and rapid tester, and for 6 months now has been seconded to the National AIDS Program where she works two days a week providing counselling. Trained by CHAA/Intrahealth International and the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, Althea can now provide pre-counselling in the field, and refers clients to the AIDS Secretariat on days she is there, a model that is increasing access to good quality, non-stigmatising HIV counselling and testing for sex workers.

For some time now, Althea has wanted to bring a group of migrant sex workers into the CHAA office, to provide knowledge and life-skills building sessions for her clients. This month Althea achieved this.

For two days a small group of women participated in an intimate training in the Antigua office. The first day covered basic HIV & AIDS information and clarified myths, and participants and Althea explored key problems they find in their work and tried to find solutions to these. The women identified personal safety and security as a main concern in their club, fear of violence from clients, and 'tricky' clients who try to remove condoms during business. Using a problem and solution tree, the women then came up with some possible solutions which included improving peer support, finding danger code words to use when checking in on each other, keeping eyes on each other if using substances at work, and sharing information about clients who are violent or refused to pay. In designing the programme, Althea was keen to move beyond merely providing information and helping the women to cope with immediate challenges such as these. The focus then moved to building self-esteem, identifying and planning how to achieve life goals, and building the skills to get there.

On the second day the women discussed self-esteem and were asked to exchange positive attributes about each other and identify things they most liked about themselves. They then listed their personal goals for the next five years. All women listed education for their kids as a priority, and some had goals of going back to school or building businesses. Following this, Althea led the women through a practical session on budgeting, and the women had to think through their current spending and saving habits. Each realized new things about their spending, for instance, one participant found she spent as much money on ecstasy as on food every month. They also reflected together on how to better budget to achieve the goals they had identified for themselves.

Life Skills Session: Budgeting and Goal Setting

This workshop was a major accomplishment for Althea and the CHAA Antigua office. In a climate of xenophobia against migrant sex workers, frequent raids on clubs, and sometimes competitive feelings between sex workers, mobilizing even a small group of women is a success for CHAA and the women who bravely shared their stories, ideas and dreams with us. Since the sessions the women have opened saving boxes to help better save their money. One also persuaded her regular partner to take an HIV and STI test with her. CHAA hopes to replicate this training on a regular basis.

CHAA is especially proud of Althea who with assistance from other staff designed and facilitated the entire training with finesse and understanding that only a peer of the community could possess. The success of this activity is continued proof that a peer based model works. It is also proof that marginalized peers can come together to challenge and resist structural barriers that put them at risk for HIV.

CHAA believes that marginalized populations must be at the forefront of the response to HIV & AIDS. Our Animator programme, delivered in four countries in the Eastern Caribbean, is this belief in action. 21 peer educators work alongside sex workers, men who have sex with men, and people living with HIV & AIDS as part of the Eastern Caribbean Community Action Project, a three year project funded by USAID. CHAA Animators have been trained in behaviour change, advocacy, gender, sexual reproductive health, participatory learning and action techniques, and in some countries as HIV counsellors and testers.

"I feel very good, like I've achieved something by helping the young ladies to try and develop better saving habits. Being broke can make you do desperate things, like having sex without condoms for a high price. Better saving will help the girls to get out of the business quicker and find alternatives to sex work." - Althea, CHAA Animator in Antigua

Last Updated on: March 9, 2011

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