HIV prevention

NINERELA+ leverages on faith platform to promote HIV prevention. In particular, NINERElA+ uses Religious Leaders who are trained as Champions, to create demand for HIV services like HIV testing and counselling, prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV by using trained mentor mothers and volunteers to track pregnant women in faith communities (both Christians and Muslims) and ensure they patronise antenatal services and HIV testing.

Stigma Reduction

This forms one of NINERELA+ greatest achievements. NINERELA+ promotes SAVE through capacity building of religious leaders who use the pulpit to correct the erroneous narratives that drive HIV stigma. NINERELA+ championed the development of Nigeria’s first stigma reduction strategy and produced a faith-based version of Nigeria’s anti-discrimination Act as a tool for engaging faith communities in stigma reduction.

Sexual and reproductive health/Rights

Recognising the dangers of silencing discussions on sexual and reproductive health and rights, particularly among people of faith, NINERELA+ has consistently engaged faith leaders in trainings and dialogues on the need to promote greater consciousness on SRHR. Over the years, NINERELA+ has set up and strengthened congregation based health committees to institutionalize the response on SRHR through counselling and mentoring in faith communities.

NINERELA+ also targets adolescents and young people and has created a network of school based peer educators who mentor their peers around issues of SRHR, prevention of unwanted pregnancy and forced marriage.

Maternal and Child Health:

NINERELA+ has been leveraging on the faith networks to reach pregnant women and nursing mother with information and services that promote their wellbeing. Through the established congregational health committees, NINERELA+ promotes uptake of maternal and child health services like ante-natal care, PMTCT, immunization, TB case detection/referral, management of diarrhoea and deworming.

Livelihood Support

NINERELA+ adopts a collaborative approach with faith communities in livelihood support, particularly for vulnerable adolescents and young people. The Girl-Child project for instance was introduced in 2012 at different faith congregations in Abuja under the management on the host faith communities. Over the years, the initiative has trained many young girls in fashion designing/cloth making. The sustainability of the project at the Anglican Church in Abacha Baracks is the evidence that it is a replicable strategy for grassroots implementation of livelihood development projects.

Peace, conflict Resolution and Improving Access to Justice through interfaith dialogues

As an interfaith organization, NINERELA+ brings faith leaders together to dialogue on how they can collectively address social problems in the society. NINERELA+ is well aware of the fact that Religious leaders are highly respected in Nigeria and are willing partners in achieving sustainable development initiatives. NINERELA has keyed int the opportunities provided by faith platforms to engage faith leaders in the resolution of conflicts and providing access to justice for victims of rights violation.

Gender/Gender-based violence

NINERELA+ has a strong bias against gender based violence (GBV) and gender inequality. Over the years, NINERELA+ has set up gender protection networks of female religious leaders who have been trained as champions and are working in their various communities. In particularly, NINERELA+ has been in active engagement of faith communities on elimination of female genital mutilation and forced/early marriage.

Advocacy

NINERELA+ engages in community and policy influencing through high level advocacy and community mobilization. NINERELA+ was active in pushing for the passing of Nigeria’s anti-discrimination Act 2014 and has participated in development of several policy documents in the National HIV response. NINERELA+ produced and aired a radio program “Heal my Heart”, broadcasted in the popular Human Right Radio in Abuja. The radio program aimed at enlightening the public on HIV, reconstructing the narratives around HIV to eliminate the associated stigma, and create demand for uptake of HIV services/expose the damaging occurrences of GBV.