The Ready Program

READY is a movement of youth-led and youth serving organisations working with and for adolescents and young people living with and affected by HIV. It targets adolescents and young people in their diversity, to empower them to influence the decisions that affect their sexual and reproductive health and rights.

READY+ is part of a portfolio of programmes designed to build Resilient and Empowered Adolescents and Young people (READY). The first phase of the four-year programme (2016-2020) worked with and for young people living with HIV in Mozambique, eSwatini, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. Its focus was on increasing access to holistic care and support: promoting not only sexual and reproductive health and rights but also mental health in order to foster resilience. A key part of the project are the CATS (Community Adolescent Treatment Supporters) who provide peer to peer information, counselling, and support.

READY+ Phase II is a six-year programme (2021 – 2026) that will build upon this work and expand its reach into Angola, Malawi, and Zambia, with increased focus on creating a strengthened youth centred implementation model, gender norms transformation, advocacy and movement building. The programme will be delivered using a multi-layered approach, incorporating lessons learnt from READY+. The programme will directly reach over 40,000 adolescents and young people living with or most affected by HIV. It will support them to become more resilient, empowered and knowledgeable and to have the bodily autonomy, freedom and agency to realise their sexual and reproductive health and rights.

Frontline AIDS is leading the READY+ consortium in partnership with Africaid/Zvandiri, Coordinating Assembly of NGOs in eSwatini (CANGO), Global Network of Young People Living with HIV (Y+ Global), Paediatric AIDS Treatment for Africa (PATA) and the Regional Psychosocial Support Initiative (REPSSI). It is funded by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Maputo.

Goal

The goal of the programme is that: Adolescents and young people living with or most affected by HIV (AYPLHIV), especially those who are most vulnerable, are resilient, empowered, and knowledgeable, have bodily autonomy and the freedom and agency to realise their sexual and reproductive health and rights