The Interfaith Health Program continues its second year of activities in partnership with the CDC’s Division of Global HIV/AIDS Public-Private Partnership (PPP) initiative to build programmatic, capacity-building, sustainability, and technical assistance initiatives with faith-based organizations providing HIV prevention, treatment, and support services.  In the second year, the IHP PPP is focused on these five priorities:

1.  Increase understanding of the contributions of FBOs to comprehensive HIV prevention, treatment and support

• Describe the scope of faith-based health systems to HIV prevention, treatment, and support:
  In the 2013 project year, the IHP PPP developed a framework describing the contributions of faith-based health systems to country-level HIV prevention, treatment, and support services in Kenya. This year, the IHP PPP will identify another country for carrying out a similar descriptive analysis, using the same framework.

• Describe the contributions of faith-based organizations in addressing the broader social forces that contribute to HIV vulnerability:
  Faith-based organizations offer distinctive contributions to sustainable efforts to address social forces and disparities that leave some communities more vulnerable to HIV infection and/or disease progression.  The IHP PPP will work to research and document these contributions.

2.  Expand FB partnership networks:  These networks will span international, national, regional, and local levels and reach a broad spectrum of religious leaders from across religious traditions.

3.  Improve collaborations in resource-poor settings:  Working with its Kenyan partners, the IHP PPP will implement health asset mapping in seven informal settlements around Nairobi to respond to the particular needs of HIV-positive adolescents related to sexual health, education, and economic opportunities. 

4.  Provide leadership development initiatives for current and future generations of leaders in undertaking HIV policy advocacy:  The IHP PPP will implement an Executive Leadership Institute to build networks between religious leaders and leaders from government and civil society to support advocacy and strategic planning.

5.  Build organizational and programmatic capacity of faith-based organizations

• Mentorship across the Christian Health Association Platform: Working with the Secretariat of the Christian Health Association Platform, the IHP PPP will provide a mentorship framework in which a smaller Christian Health Association will work with the Christian Health Association of Kenya to strengthen administrative and programmatic structures.

•  Building partnerships between faith-based organizations, civil society organizations, and HIV treatment programs in local communities:  Local organizations are an important resource for psychosocial services but partnerships between these organizations and health facilities can be difficult to establish.  Through a community institute, the IHP PPP will establish local teams representing these institutions in communities in Kenya to create a holistic model of clinical and psychosocial treatment that can help people living with HIV stay in care.