The Prevention and Cure of AIDS in Rural Areas: Experiences in Community Intervention

The Henan Community Education Research Center undertook an “Integrated Community Intervention for the Prevention and Cure of AIDS” project from September 2002 to January 2004 in Dinglou village, Shangcai county, Henan province—a high AIDS–occurrence region. The project was funded by Oxfam Hong Kong, and its purpose was to explore a community-based model of care and support work, and promote the prevention and cure of AIDS. We were the first nongovernmental organization financially supported by an outside organization that was involved in AIDS prevention and cure work in Shangcai county. At that time, the situation was extremely difficult: (1) we had neither experience nor even basic knowledge regarding the prevention and cure of AIDS. We accepted this project only due to our sense of mission and responsibility; (2) we had no local partner whom we could understand and trust and who could understand and trust us, so we had to do everything ourselves; (3) for various reasons, AIDS was a very sensitive topic in Henan province and this greatly affected project operation. However, after working hard for more than a year, we did obtain preliminary results in our work in a pilot village. We also obtained the trust of the pertinent departments of Shangcai county government and the villagers of Dinglou village, which laid the foundation for later work. Shangcai county is the second most populous county in Henan province. It has a population of 1.33 million, 95 percent of whom are rural people. It is officially