Engaging young people through social mapping Wishes Gwenyambira

Engaging young people through social mapping Wishes Gwenyambira Lydia Chanaiwa Marshal Chiwodza Elfias Moyo

FAST STUDY introduction § We know young people are at high risk of HIV acquisition but are not frequent users of HIV services at facilities. § HIV self- testing offers young people a way to learn about their HIV status without visiting health care facilities. § In order to help the distribution team to plan their distribution, our group aim was to determine ‘social hotspots’ were young people meet and congregate.

What did we hope to learn? § To identify possible places where young people are most likely to access HIV self-test kits. § Activities that are being done during their free time. § Why young people do not access HIV testing services at facilities. § Possibilities of out-door testing.

Methods § Protocol training and Good Clinical Practice (GCP) training was done in order for us to be prepared. § When we arrived at POLYTECHNIC we wanted to familiarise with the place so we started by mapping the buildings and every corner of the area within the premises using electronic tablets. § We used MAPSME application to locate points of interest.

Methods [Cont’d] § We also used field maps so that students can enlighten us areas where they congregate. § We went to the areas where youth congregate and held focus group discussions using qualitative method to understand how they felt about distribution of the self-test kits at their door step.

Interacting with participants allowed us to understand why they are not comfortable to test at clinics. Students helped to point out why certain distribution points would not be suitable e. g. no privacy, not enough footfall Students helped us understand what time of day and days of week they were on campus 1000 test kits where distributed.

Conclusions § Fear of needles, stigma and service providers is the reason why young people are not frequent users of HIV testing. § Non-judgemental is one of the characters we were taught when being a researchers. § Out-door HIV testing succeeded because we could test of about 40 people in just a day § Our learnings were informed by engaging

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