Program: The YouthsConcernCareSolidarity Project

TAYOA is launching in Dar es Salaam a five-year program (2001-6) called the YouthsConcernCareSolidarity Project. This will be the principal vehicle for TAYOA's leadership in the struggle against the HIV/AIDS virus. The overall objective of this project is to inform and educate young people about HIV/AIDS through participatory action that instills critical changes in both values and behavior, while at the same time developing skills for life and livelihood. The program will enlist hundreds of volunteers who are already working with TAYOA in its Big Brothers-Big Sisters Network, an association that TAYOA started in Dar es Salaam for the now-completed project called Urban Youth Mobilization for Elections 2000. This program will also provide meaningful and remunerative work for young entrepreneurs who will be managing the distribution of condoms through dispensers that TAYOA will import from China.

The YouthsConcernCareSolidarity Project will mount a comprehensive yet integrated attack on the whole problem of youth awareness and engagement in the fight against AIDS, which must be the core of a strategy to prevent HIV/AIDS in Tanzania. Education and action must also be complemented by research, both about the roots of peoples' behavior and about systems for buttressing prevention of the disease. One promising area of systems research being tackled by TAYOA is the design of a national Social Insurance System, wherein rights of insured persons to subsidized drugs depend on their compliance with accepted rules for the spread of the HIV virus. A detailed list of tasks and activities has been developed for the YouthConcernCareSolidarity Project.