HIV/AIDS remains a serious health threat in many African countries including Ghana . Every year hundreds of adults and children are infected with and die of this killer virus. IFRE's partners work to advance adolescent reproductive health and HIV/AIDS prevention. Using the "Stepping Stones" approach, they focuses on promoting behavioral change through facilitating discussions of HIV prevention and sexual health with community groups. Community groups include youth groups in/out-of-school, clients at antenatal clinics and general community meetings. Interns are mainly involved with counseling and education. This project is open to any interns who are willing to share their love, time and compassion with the HIV patients and who are committed to supporting efforts to stop the spread of this disease.

PROJECT AT A GLANCE

Location:  Kasoa, Accra, Kumasi, Hohoe Start Point:  Accra   End Point:   Accra Duration:  2-12 Weeks  Hours:  30-40 Hours per week  Food:  Local food (3 times a day) Room:  Host family or homebase Date:  First and Third Monday of each month

There are no specific qualifications required to intern in this project. However, interns must demonstrate love and willingness to share time and compassion with people. A high level of patience and flexibility is mandatory.

Interns may directly provide support and care to HIV/AIDS infected patients, including children, or engage the public with educational training and activities meant to increase awareness and stop the epidemic of HIV/AIDS in Ghana . Several local NGOs work on HIV/AIDS programs which are focused on two areas. First focus area includes: treatment, psychological counseling and support to whose people infected with HIV/AIDS. Interns within the scope of the first focus area generally visit with HIV/AIDS patients (along with a local worker) and distribute food, clothes, medicine and give mental counseling and support. You may provide basic but valuable tips to patients on health, nutrition and sanitation and you may be involved in keeping patient records.

The second focus area includes: HIV/AIDS treatment/awareness programs to increase the community's understanding of HIV/AIDS, ways to prevent the spread of the disease and how to protect themselves from contracting the disease. Interns supporting awareness/outreach normally contribute to counseling and education in major hospitals and communities to raise personal risk perception among young men and women. Programs actively involve youth in participatory HIV/AIDS preventive education within the district. Interns may focused on outreach and awareness programs often visit many schools, villages, churches and present information and media, posters, distribute pamphlets and condoms, etc.

IFRE manages living accommodations, provides meals and supervision for interns for the entirety of their stay in Ghana . We offer a “ homebase ” in Ghana .  Our homebase is about an hour drive from Accra . We try to create a “home away from home” for interns staying at our homebase. It is a perfect situation for interns to live safely and comfortably while making many new friends and sharing experience every day. Most of interns project in Ghana are located within 1-20 KM of our homebase so you may walk or ride a local bus to your project. In the evening when you return to homebase, you can relax, eat dinner, explore local areas or simply share experience with internship comrades.

Occasionally if a project is located far from the IFRE homebase or when our homebase is fully occupied with interns, we will place interns with host families. Our host families are carefully screened, socially respected and experienced with hosting international interns. Wherever you stay, your accommodation with IFRE is safe, clean and comfortable. In most cases, you will share a room with interns (of same gender). In Ghana , our field staff is an experienced team comprising of country coordinators, assistant coordinators, managers, cooks and field assistants. Our field staff visits interns regularly and always happy to help our interns in any way needed. We offer 3 meals a day of local cuisine. Typically, interns eat breakfast and dinner at the homebase (or host family) and have lunch at their project. We offer fresh, nutritious and safe local foods to our interns to eat. We also work extremely hard to maintain our facilities in a positive condition.