5) Description of health product/service offering: Sensitization and information for the prevention of HIV- AIDS in rural communities.

6) Description of innovation: What is innovative about the initiative is the approach focused on rural communities for sensitization, information and prevention. Most existing programs are only active in large cities and urban centers. This is why I want prevention services to operate in villages.

7) Operational model: Our organization focuses on the production and the collection of biological karate almonds, education, training and sensitization. The association Songtaab- Yalgré (A.S.Y) has more than 2.000 female members in rural areas.

8) Human resources: Sensitization and information about early detection are keys for mind and behavior change so that individuals make the decision to go for an HIV test. Sixteen field agents have been trained as community health agents and are supervised by two persons: an anesthesiologist/birth attendant in charge of education and a development agent. There is also a youth theater group of A.S.Y that organizes plays on various health-related topics (HIV- AIDS, Family Planning, excision etc).

9) Key operational partnerships: The main partners are the associations of early detection of HIV-AIDS. This is a critical partnership because they are specialized agents. We must work closely with this kind of organizations to implement early detection. Our role is to take them to rural areas to serve low-income populations that are very poor, have cultural problems and do not have the means to go for a test.

10) Financial Sustainability

          • Fees charged to clients?: No

          • How do you assure affordability?: Beneficiaries contribute in-kind and morally to the health services.

          • Earned incomes as a percentage of operating costs: low

          • Other funding sources: A.S.Y puts together basic treatment kits (aspirin, anti- malaria, condoms, etc.) and sells them to our producer groups, which allows generating a small fund.

          • Strategy for long-term sustainability: As far as the long term financial sustainability of my project is concerned, I am focusing on the development of income-generating activities for women. We have therefore created production centers for biological karite. Thanks to their increasing incomes and profit, they will hopefully be able to take care of themselves in the future.

11) Current and Future Impact

          • Total number of clients: 20,000

          • Clients in the past year: 20,000

          • Percentage of low-income clients: 100

          • Impact: Over two thousand families including a minimum of 10 people per family benefit from our KARIBIO PROJECT. This project helped the direct beneficiaries to be in charge, to take part in the household tasks, to take care of their children’s health, and to get involved with various sensitization activities regarding reproductive health. Beneficiaries are among the poorest and the current impact is very broad and quantitative. The social impact in our field is the fight against poverty for rural women and from this starting point, contributing to improve their education level, behavior change and their engagement in health issues (early detection of the HIV-AIDS, excision, family planning, etc).

          • Overall "market": All low-income rural women should be able to benefit from this kind of program.

12) Scaling up strategy

          • Stage of the initiative: Scaling Up stage.

          • Expansion plan: My initiative will be in a growth phase over the next 3 years, starting from 8 villages and 2,000 women. I intend to expand to other villages to continue sensitizing on the importance of HIV-AIDS with proximity programs.

13) Policy change: Effective rural development programs

14) Origin of the initiative: The initiative was started by Marceline OUEDRAOGO who has been working with other colleagues and leadership members of the A.S.Y office. Marceline is the President and founder of the A.S.Y. She is an Ashoka Fellow from Burkina Faso, mother of three children and three grandsons. She has a university degree. She is between 45 and 50 years old.

Contact Information:
Marceline  Ouedraogo
Présidente-fondatrice
l’Association Songtaab-Yalgré (A.S.Y)
(Entreprise sociale associative)
01 BP 6696 OUAGADOUGOU 01
Burkina Faso
Tel: (00226) 50.34-19-74
Fax: (00226) 50.34-19-74
Email: songtab@fasonet.bf
Website: www.songtaaba.net