RRP+ Celebrates 20th work anniversary; A devoted effort to improve quality of life for PLHIV

The Rwanda Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS (RRP+) joined other stakeholders on Thursday November 30^th to mark the World AIDS Day 2023. The event held at Kigali Convention Center coincided with celebrating the network’s 20^th working anniversary.

While presiding over the ceremony, the Minister of Health Dr. Sabin Nsanzimana said that HIV response should involve treatment of other diseases in a comprehensive manner for people to live longer, raise their families & contribute economically to their country.

  “When we meet here we reflect, commit, support, care and move on as this pandemic, like other pandemics are not yet gone, we are still fighting. We are not doing enough to protect young people, we should look back on our strategies to change and adapt and invent new ways of protecting young people, ” said Dr. Nsansimana.

The Minister added that Young people are getting infected and at high risk than ever before, representing almost 1/3 of all infections in Rwanda and other places and their compliance to treatment is still low compared to other age categories.  

For the past two decades, the Rwanda Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS (RRP+) has been dedicated to contributing to the national HIV response through HIV prevention, care, treatment and mitigation.

The Chairperson of RRP+ Sylvie Muneza also stressed challenges in the fight against AIDS including limited funding in HIV response & stigma especially among the youth. She however applauded government support in supporting people living with HIV in terms of treatment and care, and backing them up for representation at different levels.

RRP+ was established in 2003, with representatives of 175 associations of People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV) from across the country. Currently, the network has grown to over 162,000 members (76%) and 441 sector representatives.

Over the past two decades, RRP+ has made a lot of outstanding accomplishments in collaboration with the Ministry of Health/RBC, different development partners and CSOs implementing programs in HIV response.

To understand the journey made by RRP+, we look at some areas whose results have improved the wellbeing of people infected and affected by HIV.

Growing the number of beneficiaries: From 175 associations of PLHIV during establishment in 2003, RRP+ now boosts of 12 NGOs, 300 cooperatives and 500 associations.  RRP+ supports capacity building programs of the representatives in the role of PLHIV in HIV prevention, care, Treatment, leadership skills, community-led monitoring, evidence-based advocacy; and the fight against stigma and discrimination.

Community mobilization and awareness:  HIV response requires disseminating enough information on treatment, care and mitigation.  RRP+ works in collaboration with over 5,000 peer educators, selected and trained on HIV community peer support; organising monthly community educational health session, conducting home visits, coordinating referrals to health facilities and continuous community HIV prevention awareness.

The role of peer educators is largely witnessed in promoting awareness on HIV prevention, effective health service uptake, targeting key and priority populations (condom use, Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT), self-testing, Voluntary medical male circumcision-(VMMC), among other services.  

  Supporting retention in HIV care:  For the past two decades, RRP+ has maintain its role in linking HIV patients to care, so that the person enrolled in HIV care regularly adheres to antiretroviral treatment (ART).  This program implemented via peer education approach contributes to Viral Load suppression.

Advocacy on rights for PLHIV: For the past 20 years RRP+ has been advocating for an enabling environment that protects and promotes the rights of people living with HIV. Community dialogues for both rights holders (recipients of care infected or affected by HIV) and duty bearers (local authorities, health care providers) and CSOs. This is as well supplemented by regional coordination national consultative meetings with key stakeholders, to discuss progress in HIV response and challenges, for actions.

Community awareness on stigma/discrimination:  Reduction of stigma has been among priority tasks of RRP+ .  Considering that Stigma is one of the utmost barriers to testing and treatment for people living with HIV, the organization (RRP+) has enabled PLHIV to have alternative antiretroviral (ARV) delivery system.

Impact mitigation: Improving the economic status of PLHIV is paramount and a range of interventions to mitigate the increasing impact of HIV/AIDS. This has been through empowering the socio-economic status of PLHIV enrolled in RRP+ organizations, by Promoting income generating activities, vocational training for job creation, training of member associations on leadership and managerial skills.

Success registered by RRP+ has also been built on ensuring representativeness of key groups of PLHI, building partnership with local authorities, Health facilities, donors, nationally/international organizations in HIV response.

RRP+’s influence is still felt around Rwanda, as it remains committed to its vision to see that Rwandans living with and affected by HIV are healthy, and free from stigma and discrimination, as they are also fully engaged in the HIV response. This aligns with this year’s theme in marking the World AIDS day “Let Communities Lead.”