MAC AIDS Fund Leadership Initiative

MAC AIDS Fund Leadership Initiative Partner(s): Anke Ehrhardt
HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies

Access: Private
Released: February 2008

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The MAC AIDS Leadership Initiative trains fellows from South Africa in HIV/AIDS prevention at the HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies at the New York State Psychiatric Institute (NYSPI) and Columbia University. The initiative is a 12-month training program designed to cultivate new leaders in HIV/AIDS prevention who will make a major contribution to advocacy and programming at the local, regional, or national levels within South Africa. This web-based environment is designed to help the program meet its objectives of training these emerging leaders on reducing the spread of HIV and the impact of AIDS by addressing the role of gender inequality.

The MAC AIDS Fund Leadership Initiative project was developed in partnership with the HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies at NYSPI and Columbia University. The UCLA Program in Global Health was also a collaborator. The project was funded by the MAC AIDS Fund.

See also:

View the MAC AID Leadership Initiative website

Project Details

The MAC AIDS Community Forum is a collaborative space where fellows and program mentors can share and access materials during the initial two-month training program and throughout the training year. Trainees also use the site to develop prevention intervention plans and to receive feedback from their mentors and peers. As trainees implement their intervention plans, their experiences are tracked and documented in the Forum.

The major goals of each cohort's year-long training include:

  • Expanding knowledge regarding HIV transmission with an emphasis on obtaining relevant, useful information and developing effective intervention strategies in HIV prevention, particularly as concerns the impact of gender inequality on the spread of HIV;
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Developing skills to provide effective, nonjudgmental communication about human sexuality and HIV/AIDS with different target populations in professional settings;
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Developing capacity to conceptualize, design, and implement an effective and feasible HIV prevention plan with concrete goals, objectives, and evaluation components;
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Practicing skills needed to sustain an HIV/AIDS prevention program (e.g., budgeting, identifying sources of funding, working with the media, capacity building, networking, facilitation skills).