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People Affected by HIV and AIDS

  1. Why people affected by HIV and AIDS?

    • As of December 2007, there were 33.2 million people living with HIV worldwide.
    • Every day nearly 7,000 people are newly infected with HIV, 40% of them are young people aged 15-25. 5,500 die from HIV-related causes every day, and the majority of these are among the most economically productive age-group.
    • In addition an estimated 18 million children have lost one or both parents to AIDS.
    • It is estimated that 80% of people who have HIV have not been tested, and so do not know their status.
    • Although sub-Saharan Africa represents just over 10% of the world’s population, it is home to over two-thirds of all people living with HIV.

    UNAIDS has highlighted that HIV is a “disease of inequalities” that continues to spread due to deep- rooted societal injustices such as gender inequity, marginalisation and criminalisation of vulnerable groups. The number of people living with HIV is increasing, because of new infections and the fact that people with HIV are living longer as treatment is made more widely available. Given this trend, there will be a growing demand from people living with HIV for access to treatment, care and support, as well as impact mitigation and prevention services.

  2. Our Goal

    Our goal is to improve the quality of life of people living with HIV and strengthen their engagement in the response to the epidemic.

  3. How we can best support change

    Comic Relief believes that people with HIV know best what services they need and what changes are required to transform their lives and those of their families. We believe that stigma and discrimination are among the greatest barriers to change, and that there are wider factors in society influencing the spread of HIV, such as unequal gender relations. Comic Relief believes that the quality of life of people living with HIV can be improved by:

    • Providing and enabling access to comprehensive services for people with HIV and their families.
    • Building the capacity of people living with HIV to respond to the epidemic.
    • Advocating for and supporting policy work which leads to improvements in the lives of people with HIV and their families.

  4. Outcomes

    Comic Relief wants to know that the projects we fund are bringing about changes in the lives of poor and disadvantaged people. We call these changes 'programme level outcomes', and define them as the ‘intended or unintended effects or changes to people’s lives that happen as a result of the project or organisation’s activities’.

    During the period covered by the strategy we anticipate that the lives of people affected by HIV and AIDS will be transformed as follows:

    • Increase in the number of people with HIV and their families realising their rights to services that will enable them to live longer, healthier and more productive lives.
    • People living with HIV and their families benefit from increased incomes and more secure tenure resulting in improved livelihoods.
    • Measurable improvements in relationships between men and women leading to an increase in the practice of safer sex and greater uptake of HIV services by those who need them.
    • People living with HIV and their families experience a measurable reduction in stigma and discrimination, which leads to more equitable access to services, increased understanding and reduced fears about HIV and AIDS.
    • Increased numbers of civil society organisations addressing the impact of HIV in the workplace, leading to increasing number of staff and volunteers accessing HIV prevention and care services, reduced levels of stigma, and better organisational performance as a result of these policies and practices.

  5. Where we will fund

    The People Affected by HIV and AIDS programme will continue to focus on any country or region in Africa. We will prioritise countries with a generalised HIV epidemic, i.e. where HIV prevalence is consistently over 1% in pregnant women.

  6. Who we will fund

    The overall aim of this programme is to support people living with HIV and their families. This includes children affected by HIV or who are especially vulnerable to HIV. We recognise the importance of using evidence in HIV prevention. We will focus our resources on those groups who, according to evidence, are most vulnerable to HIV and are demonstrably underserved by HIV prevention services in their country context. These groups include men who have sex with men, people who use injection drugs, people with HIV and sex workers.

  7. Download the full People Affected by HIV programme strategy document