PSP - Poro Sapot - Banner, Port Moresby, PNG.

We take people off the streets ... encourage them to be tested. Some are HIV-positive. What then?

The Poro Sapot Project (PSP) is an HIV/AIDS behaviour change intervention project based on peer outreach, primarily targeting female sex workers and men who have sex with men, including transgender people. Importantly, it uses a peer outreach model to reduce the negative impact of HIV. Poro Sapot basically means ‘friends supporting friends’.

Implemented by Save the Children PNG in Port Moresby, Lae, Goroka and Kainantu, PSP addresses the needs of target populations who engage in high risk behaviours, and who are not easily reached by traditional activities promoting HIV/STI prevention and care. One indication of the success of PSP’s peer approach is the number of current PSP staff who first came into contact with the service as clients, and who then became volunteers and employees. They know what it means to be sex workers and men who have sex with men in PNG: an understanding crucial to PSP’s work.

Read the full story on afao.org.au. [includes footnotes and contact information]

Photo courtesy of PSP.