A planning and launching workshop for the project “Gender equity in access to HIV testing and care in voodoo convents in southern Togo” was held on Wednesday, May 8 in Tabligbo in the Yoto 1 commune.
This workshop is initiated by the organization Cooperation to Support Integral Development in Togo (CADI-Togo). It benefited from technical and financial support from the Fondation de France. The meeting brought together community health workers, cantonal chiefs, voodoo priests and priestesses, representatives of decentralized state services, mayors and general secretaries of the Vo and Yoto prefectures.
Objective: promote access for vulnerable groups to HIV screening and care and develop the knowledge of convent stakeholders with a view to adopting gender-sensitive practices with the aim of protecting children living in fetish convents against contamination to HIV.
This ten-month project (March to December 2024) will be implemented in Vo and Yoto prefectures. Contacting the authorities and the presidents of the traditional chiefs of priests and priestesses, the updating of old convents followed by the census of new convents, the training of municipal councilors, cantonal chiefs, traditional chiefs, priests and priestesses as well as the The technical team of the project on the gender-HIV issue and the approach to positive masculinity are included in the agenda of this project.
The project also provides for compensation for new convents, the supply of reagents and other associated inputs for voluntary and anonymous screening as an advanced strategy in convents, the offer of voluntary and anonymous HIV screening, syndromic treatment of STIs and administration of contraceptives, support for followers to initiate an income-generating activity upon leaving the convent, the establishment of local committees to combat gender-based violence and the capitalization and dissemination of good practices .
With ATOP
