After completing dozens of interviews and focus groups in the field, we have finally wrapped up a two-week long mini-evaluation of St. Boniface's PEPFAR sponsored New Partners Initiative (NPI) HIV/AIDS education and prevention program.  I wanted to share our experience with St. Boniface's supporters. Throughout two-week evaluation, we were able to access the program's efficacy in the field. We also got a unique perspective on St. Boniface's other programs and services in the 16 communities we visited.

 St. Boniface launched the NPI program two years ago and the data we have been collecting throughout the program shows that the program has so far been very successful in reaching the number of people we set out to reach. Nevertheless, we cannot rest on this success and are continuously looking for new strategies to reach more people in far reaching communities. Our team is also working to make our HIV/AIDS prevention messages more effective in the communities we serve.

The NPI program is fully integrated into the other community health and clinical activities at St. Boniface Hospital. Through NPI we educate people about HIV, the major modes of transmission and encourage people to protect themselves using the ABC model. Parallel to NPI are our AIDS Relief programs for HIV/AIDS follow up care and treatment and our CRS funded nutrition program for people living with HIV/AIDS.

The past two weeks of evaluation were challenging in many ways. Our catchment area is very large and field work is difficult because most of the communities we serve are not navigable by car. We visited outlying areas whose names were only familiar to us on reports. We hiked mountains, crossed knee-deep rivers, traded footpaths on mountainsides and braved the burning sun. We faced all these challenges with a strong team spirit and a common goal.

St. Boniface strives to make our services accessible to all even the poorest populations living in remote areas. These past two weeks permitted us to not only collect data that will help to plan the NPI program's third year but also assess the needs of the communities we visited. We learned where we should plan more mobile clinics, vaccination trips, large scale HIV testing, and other services crucial to the health of the rural poor.