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HIV/AIDS Health Promotion an Education
Cooperative Agreement Program
Fiscal Year 2004

African Refugees and Immigrants; Adolescents and Adults

The goal of the Ethiopian Community Development Council’s (ECDC) HIV/AIDS Health Promotion and Education Among African Refugees and Immigrants project is to reduce the incidence of HIV among at-risk African refugee and immigrant youth and adults in Houston, Texas and Las Vegas, Nevada. The project’s street and community outreach, and prevention and risk reduction activities are directed from the ECDC national office, and carried out in local communities by its branch office, the ECDC African Community Center in Las Vegas, Nevada and an affiliate agency, the Alliance for Multicultural Community Services in Houston, Texas. The national office develops protocols and materials used in the local educational programs, as well as educational messages and brochures in the following languages: English, Amharic, Somali, Arabic, Tigrina and French. These educational materials and brochures provide consistency among the two local projects. The local projects contact and recruit youth and adult participants at a variety of settings including recreational centers, schools, sporting events, adult education centers, faith-based institutions, street fairs, ethnic businesses, and community-based organizations. A number of referral service options are offered, as determined by outreach workers and case managers, for HIV testing, counseling, assistance navigating health centers and other services, or information about the availability of educational programs and individual health risk factor assessments. Two one-hour educational sessions are held separately for two youth and two adult groups each year, at each site, to discuss modes of transmission, attitudes about HIV testing, counseling, and risk reduction behaviors. At the end of each project year, focus groups are convened to discuss perceptions about the outreach and educational interventions provided by the project.