NGO wins Sh7m Aids award

From: AllAfrica.com - Dec 10, 2003

The Nation (Nairobi)

By Nation Reporter Nairobi

A Kenyan organisation has won Sh6.8 million World Bank award for promoting Aids awareness among the deaf.

The HIV Awareness Project of the Deaf (Kenya) was honoured particularly for its creativity. It is among four NGOs that won Sh35 million in the 2003 Development Marketplace (DM) competition for innovative Aids projects in the developing countries.

The award is an initiative of the bank and the US government through USAid to find ways of fighting the disease globally.

The local NGO develops sign language manuals, curricula and programmes on the prevention of HIV infection and care for the infected. It will now be commissioned to produce more education material for the deaf worldwide.

Other NGOs honoured during the ceremony held at the World Bank headquarters in Washington are Training and Job Market Insertion for Adolescent Aids Orphans in Bahia, Brazil, which enables young patients to get jobs.

It received more than Sh10 million.

Campaign Against HIV/Aids on Electronic Media of Ethiopia received Sh7 million.

Romania's Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission of HIV Infection Grassroots Intervention in Rural Areas was awarded Sh12 million.

Development Marketplace is a World Bank programme that promotes innovative development ideas through early stage funding, and is partly supported by the Joint UN Programmes on HIV/Aids.

Announcing the winners World Bank President James Wolfensohn, said the quality and commitment of the different project teams showed "development at its best."

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