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Faithful House Program Ethiopia
Presented at The Christian Connection for International Health
ConferenceBaltimore, USA
May , 2009By Dr.Dehab Belay
CRS Ethiopia
What is The Faithful House ?
Building strong marriage and families to affirm life and avoid risk
A fundamental importance for mutual fidelity and partner reduction in preventing the prevalence of HIV.
A vital contribution to the health and well being of individuals, couples and families.
Target groups:
Married and co-habitating couples Engaged and intending couples Young adult or singles to
reinforce chastity and develop life skills
Parents to assist them in teaching chastity to their children
In ECC structures, through parish catechists, youth leaders, laity leaders etc.
Flexible implementation modality, regular time after mass or on weekly basis are options used.
The program is owned and implemented by ECS and diocesan offices
Central coordination and regular technical support is given by the national team.
Implementation approach:
Exhaustive discussions held among CRS, ECS, Diocese and communities
Experience sharing visit was made by 3 people from CRS & ECS to Ugandan FH program.
Report of visit was shared with other CRS, ECS and diocesan staff
Feasibility assessment was conducted in 2 selected dioceses and up to 3 parishes under each diocese
Draft implementation strategy was developed based on the assessments results and the Ugandan experience.
Accomplishment: Preparation
Accomplishment (cont’d)
The Faithful House manual was adopted to Ethiopian context.
Training of approximately 30 facilitators (ToF) was conducted centrally with the support from MLI & MLU.
The program launched in all 5 dioceses.
Results
1,281 couples and other community members have been reached
Trained couples and community members have reached 8,146 peer contacts.
Translation of the FH manual in to local language is now finalized.
Integration and mainstreaming already stated with the family desk of each diocese and ECS.
Highly appreciated by participants, they say, “We have attended many trainings and workshops, but TFH is very different…”
Woreda police members have requested and attended the full session FH along with their spouses.
Response from Participants
Sustainability
FH is integrated into family desk of ECS Family desk does not require additional
funding but capacity building to run the program,
Part of the evangelization of the church Integrated into the church's social service e.g
pre-marital counseling Support from the high level church authorities
– the bishops
Uniqueness of TFH in the Ethiopian context
TFH functioned as a wake-up call for the need of post marital counseling service by the church
Highly appreciated and supported by the highest level of Church administration (Bishops)
Muslims and members of the Orthodox church have undergone training together (Adigrat)
Muslims willingness to adapt the curriculum when funds are available Approach – does not necessarily require that couples meet away from
home.
TFH implementation highly flexible (goes where interested couple are)
Busy schedules of volunteer facilitators In the beginning of implementation, was difficult
for both parents to abandon the household at the same time in order to attend the training together.
High demand but difficult to meet due to lack of accessibility (some parishes geographic locations).
Limited budget to run the program as required. Financial expectations by a few facilitatorss
Challenges/Constraints:
The FAITHFULL HOUSE IN EAST AFRICA
Rwanda: are currently conducting operational research in order to determine the best individuals to train for reaching couples in the community and increasing program sustainability.
Uganda: the program has expanded to CVT and treatment programs where over 3,000 sero-negative and discordant couples have experienced the training on a slight modigied version of the curriculum
THANK YOU