Zvandiri

Zvandiri supports Governments to deliver peer therapy for children and adolescents living with HIV so that they survive and thrive. We support those Governments to establish and implement child and adolescent focused policies and guidelines; to capacitate service providers, families and communities to be responsive to the unique, evolving needs of young people; and embed trained, mentored peer counsellors within the multidisciplinary team caring for CAYPLHIV. These peer counsellors (18-24 years old) known as Community Adolescent Treatment Supporters (CATS) and Young Mentor Mothers (YMMs) are integrated within Government health facilities and community outreach teams as valued members of the national HIV, mental health, and SRH response. They case manage their respective caseloads of CAYPLHIV, providing information and counselling, monitoring and referrals, to promote CAYPLHIV engagement in services, adherence to treatment, viral suppression, mental health and well-being, and access to other services as needed. Since its inception, Zvandiri’s growth, evolution, and scale has been informed by a sustained programme of evidence generation, including a wide range of formative and evaluation studie including 3 randomised controlled trials. Our programme and research confirms that young people in Zvandiri are more likely to get tested for HIV, more likely to have a suppressed viral load and have a 60% reduction in symptoms of common mental disorder. It has been adopted and scaled by the Government of Zimbabwe and adopted in 13 countries in the region, reaching 190,000 children and adolescents living with HIV by 5,500 trained, mentored CATS to date.