Our Objectives
- To mentor AYP with promising ideas to design and implement pilot projects towards ending HIV among AYP in ESA, through linking them to senior researchers, advocates and program implementers.
- To provide a culture of exchange of best practices, collaborative synergy, trainings and continuous professional guidance
Our Objectives
- To link AYP to conferences to be able to share their Research, program and community engagement work.
- To provide a platform for Senior HIV and SRH researchers conducting studies in eastern and southern Africa (ESA,) to share their work on HIV and reproductive health among AYP at a level they can understand and identify with.
BEYOND THE RHETORIC ENGAGING ADOLESCENTS AND YOUNG PEOPLE IN ENDING HIV |
WHAT rhay does
Research Mentorship
Premised on the belief that AYP have ideas on how to reduce the HIV burden among their peers but lack resources to try out, RHAY has an initiative dubbed 30-U-30 award to provide seed funding to AYP in East and Southern Africa to pilot their ideas. The first phase Funding was obtained from Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, after which a total of 87 AYP were taken through thorough training on how to write abstracts and concepts proposals;
Trainings
RHAY through her Implementation science executive committee (ISEC) works with young people identified under the 30-u-30 awards project, to equip the young researchers with Implementation Science knowledge, skills and application strategies across East and Southern Africa. RHAY coordinates the mentorship trainings virtually with occasional physical meetings, by the help of Implementation science expert mentors volunteering from East and Southern Africa.
AYP Linkages
RHAY is keen on graduating the first cohort of the 30-u-30 awards mentees and assisting them develop manuscripts then begin to link them to local and international conferences to exhibit their findings and work. The first phase beneficiaries are released from March 2023
Government Collaborations
RHAY reached out to county and National governments through the national council of governors and the Lake region economic bloc (LREB) they were involved in mobilizing submission of abstracts and concept proposals from AYP across the regions. Through the chairperson Dr.Christine Wasike, LREB committed their mandate to the youth in terms of improving health and empowerment with knowledge and information.
What would you want to know?
We're here to listen and address your concerns as a young person about HIV prevention, treatment, and care – because your health matters to us.
HIV research studies
Young people mentored
Conference participation
Young people reached
WHAT IS RHAY
RHAY (Reducing HIV in Adolescents and Young People) is a response to the cry of adolescents and young people (AYP) to be involved in conferences beyond one or two of them being given the podium to tell their stories, or where only a pre-conference session is dedicated to them, or where they sit at a youth corner in the community village. Youth find it challenging to navigate the highly scientific concurrent sessions or understand the research jargon used during presentations. At the 1st HIVR4P Conference in Cape Town in 2014, a young person remarked that: “We attend these conferences and end up just talking to ourselves. We do not understand what is going on, even when they (the presenters) talk about us (youth)” .
RHAY aims to open a new chapter by bringing AYP in Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) to the forefront in the fight against HIV, not just on a conference platform but in shaping the long-term prevention and care/treatment research and program agenda towards epidemic control by 2030.
RHAY aims to move beyond the rhetoric of youth involvement to showcase what it truly means to engage young people, hear their voices, give them a platform, and built their capacity to hold the steering wheel in the fight against HIV, in the spirit of Nothing for Us without Us.
THE rhay 2022 conference
Rhay 2022 Pre-Conference
A three day pre-conference workshop was held on December 16th-18th of 2018 regarding piloting a planned international conference on Reducing HIV in Adolescents and Youth at Tom Mboya Labour College in Kisumu, Kenya.
Rhay 2022 Conference
IRDO in partnership with KEMRI, KNH and NIGEE hosted the 1st International Conference on Reducing HIV in Adolescents and Youth (RHAY) in June 21-24, 2022. The conference aimed at providing a forum for AYP to showcase their work on HIV and learn from peers
our partners
Our Address
Tom Mboya Estate Along Mito Jura Road off Kisumu Kakamega Highway
“Nothing For Us Without Us”
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