organise a project in HEalth education: some methodology
a group inevitably leads to exclusion and stigmatisation.” Certain people belonging to a target group (populations at risk of contracting HIV, sex workers, drug addicts, mothers of malnourished children, etc.) could find themselves in a highly marginalised position because of targeting. Being designated as a target group puts them in the position of the accused, which could cause them to be suspected of carrying the disease. Targeting is an “accusation” of their present or past habits which questions their morality or lifestyle. In many areas, tuberculosis is synonymous with poverty and a bad lifestyle. Targeting could be accompanied with stigmatising attitudes, in other words: exclusion. Identification is therefore a delicate process and negative side effects must be anticipated: in countries where prevention efforts are mainly focused on heterosexual transmission of HIV, the gender of the AIDS epidemic has been considered to be female, in the same way that AIDS has been seen as a “gay disease” in North America. The acknowledgement from a public health perspective that women are biologically and socially more at risk of HIV infection comes with an overwhelming trend in popular awareness to demonise sex workers and other “sexually immoral” women as being dangerous and contagious. This results in perverse effects for interventions: if resources are concentrated on women and AIDS, as is needed, the common belief that AIDS is a woman problem is reinforced, thus deflecting the attention away from men’s roles and responsibilities. Thus in Nepal today, for instance, AIDS is laden down with racial, class and gender connotations. In Africa, women do not want to be seen with contraceptives at home, as this means they are prostitutes. Defining the target group must be done
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with care. The fact of seeming like a privileged recipient and thus the main one concerned will, for individuals, be a process of differentiating individuals from their group.
2b Planning
1 / Set objectives and expected results Reminder:
An objective or a result should answer the following questions:
> what situation do you want to achieve: what? > where?
> in how much time: (when)? > which population is concerned: (who)?
A distinction will be made between the general and specific objectives of the overall project, the specific objectives for the health education section and the expected results:
General project objectives Describe what the project aims to contribute (e.g. decrease in the national prevalence of HIV, lowering infant mortality, etc.), by specifying where, in how much time, and which population(s) is (or are) concerned.
improving access to health care, etc.) Reaching the specific project objective is often impossible in the sole context of health education programmes alone, but it is rather the result of the various sections of the MdM project which fit together and complement each other as part of a health promotion approach.
Educational objectives of the health education section They can be from different categories, according to the level of the health education programme implemented. > Lifestyle change objective: for example, increasing condom use by sex workers; rehydrating children in cases of diarrhoea; > Specify where, in how much time, and for whom: for example, getting mothers to rehydrate their children in cases of diarrhoea in such and such district, before the year is out; > Objective of the population acquiring knowledge: for example, knowing how malaria is spread; > Objective of the population acquiring techniques: for example, being capable of using and soaking a mosquito net correctly.
Specific project objectives Expected results Describe what the project aims to achieve (e.g. lowering infant mortality by diarrhoea,
They come from the three fields of knowledge, know-how and good practices. 31 EN