Here’s a breakdown of the provided text,focusing on the E.Qu.as project and its approach:
Project Name: E.Qu.as – Equity, quality, access to health
Promoted by: Dream program of the Community of sant’Egidio
Financed by: Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (within the 5% Global Fund)
goal: To improve access to equipment and quality health services for the most vulnerable people living with HIV in Mozambique.
Target Population: primarily teenagers and young people between 15 and 24 years old, who are frequently enough excluded from care and prevention pathways.
Geographic Focus: Seven health centers in the provinces of Maputo, Maputo Cidade, Sofala, and Zambezia.
Project Activities (over 24 months):
Training: Formation of 140 health and socio-health workers.
Awareness Campaigns: Reaching over 5,000 young people with testing and awareness initiatives.
Center Strengthening: Enhancing three centers through psychosocial interventions and creating dedicated spaces for listening, care, and support.
Key Approach and Beliefs:
Community Participation: The project emphasizes the active involvement of the community, especially young people.
Transforming Spaces: Public and community events are organized in schools, urban spaces, and health facilities to create meeting places for reflection and awareness.
Making health Accessible and Relatable: These events aim to make health an “inclusive and accessible experience” rather than a “distant service.”
Holistic Engagement: Activities include sports, music, painting, poetry, artisan workshops, and personal testimonies, combined with testing, counseling, and health information. This creates a “common language” that integrates education, culture, and prevention.
Empowering Young People: The project focuses on giving young people a voice to discuss mental health, their serological status, and their right to be listened to and accompanied. they are encouraged to express their experiences and visions for the future through art and daily life.
Building Trust and Reducing Stigma: These events are crucial for building trust, reducing stigma, and strengthening the connection between health services and communities.
Bottom-Up Approach: The method is described as growing “from the bottom,” addressing real needs and empowering people to be “protagonists of change.”
Investing in youth as Agents of Change: The project views investing in young people as recognizing them as an “engine of social transformation,” giving space to their voices, skills, and vulnerabilities to build a “more human, more right, closer” way of living health.
Impact of Events:
Involved over 500 people (teenagers, operators, teachers, activists, institutional representatives).
Enabled dozens of teenagers to access HIV testing for the first time.
Provided clear, non-judgmental information and a space for listening and welcome.
Overall Message: E.Qu.as strengthens the health system not only through service quality but also through equitable pathways, strong relationships, and creative participation, with a core belief in the power and potential of young people.
Call to Action: A link to a video is provided.
