HIV Awareness Raising Project

Project Duration : 1 month / May 2024

Budget : 287.300 TL

Supporter : Gilead Sciences

Aims and Objectives and Methods :

The main objective of the project is: to support the 18-25 year olds studying at Izmir High Technology University, Izmir Yaşar University and Izmir University of Economics, which were selected as pilot schools.

To teach students the transmission routes of HIV and STIs, thus raising awareness and teaching them how to protect themselves from infections by informing them about prevention methods.

Another aim of the project is to develop regular HIV testing habits among young people by providing information on when and where they can get tested.

In addition to these, it is expected to contribute to the creation of positive communication and behavior models by investigating stigmatization behaviors against people living with HIV and the factors affecting this, defining the perspectives of future adults on all infections and people living with HIV, stigmatizing behaviors such as prejudice and stereotyping, if any, through panels to be organized.

Spreading these positive behavior models primarily to other university students and their peers in the community and thus;

-       Obtaining up-to-date information about HIV and STIs,

-       Increasing the level of knowledge about ways of protection against infections,

-       Encouraging people to go for testing and getting into the habit of getting tested regularly for HIV,

-       It was aimed to enable people living with HIV to use their rights more effectively without being exposed to stigmatizing behaviors throughout the society.

It was also planned to produce scientific publications by evaluating the data and outputs obtained in the project and to create an exemplary model in this regard.

The project, which consists of three steps, was designed as follows:

1.    Organizing Panels,

2.    Research Questionnaire,

3.    HIV Testing.

In the first step of the project, it was envisaged that a panel would be organized in three universities, an anonymous questionnaire would be conducted to measure knowledge/attitudes of the participants, and participants would be able to take an anonymous HIV test after the trainings.

Outputs: More than 130 people participated in the panels.

The press release published by Pozitif-iz Association after the panel discussion at Izmir Institute of Technology was featured in newspapers such as Milliyet, Hürriyet, Evrensel, CNN Türk...etc.

Turkish Project Report: https://l24.im/yHQqTWp