 |
Partners' Directory |
| Home Search Join the Partnership Login | |
| Contact | General | Specializations in Countries | Contribution to the Global Plan | Declaration |
View this partner's profile
Organization Contact Information | |
| Name: | COALITION OF WOMEN LIVING WITH HIV AND AIDS |
| Street 1: | COWLHA BOX 2874 ,Lilongwe Malawi |
| Street 2: | Area3/281, Likuni Road |
| City: | Lilongwe |
| Province: | Choose |
| Post Code: | 265 |
| Country: | Malawi |
| Phone: | 0888309917 |
| Organization Email: | tembo.edna@cowlha.org |
| Web Site: | http://www.cowlha.org |
| Other Online Presence: | Facebook: Coalition of women living with HIV and AIDS ; LinkedIn : Coalition of women living with HIV and AIDS (COWLHA) |
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
General Information | |
| Board Constituency: | None |
| Is your organization legally registered in your country: | Yes |
| If yes, please enter your registration number: | TR/INC: 3057 |
| Organization Type - Primary: | Non-Governmental Organization |
| Organization Type - Secondary: | Other Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) |
| Organization Description: | |
| Coalition of Women Living with HIV and AIDS (COWLHA) was established in 2006 to advocate for the rights of women and girls living with HIV and other issues affecting them. COWLHA uses support groups as entry points. COWLHA’s main goal is to improve the quality of life of women and girls living with HIV in Malawi. Its vision is a society where women and girls living with HIV attain a healthy life, are socio-economically empowered and their rights fulfilled. COWLHA is a registered civil society organization through the Trustees Incorporation Act of the laws of Malawi, the Council for NGOs in Malawi and the NGO Board. COWLHA is a member of MANASO, the Malawi Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights Alliance, MANAET Plus, TB CSO Network, COMPASS Coalition Malawi and the Civil Society Advocacy Forum and has membership of over 60,000 women and girls living positively in the 28 districts of Malawi. COWLHA is interested in working in the TB field as one of its thematic areas as TB and HIV are co infections and most women experience hardships with TB as care givers, and recipients of care. Working in the HIV community one cannot exclude TB. Malawi is one of the high burden country and has high incidents and prevalence on TB both in adults and children. Therefore as an organization working with women our focus is a family hence the need for our community to be aware of and knowledgeable on TB prevention, treatment and control. As COWLHA were are in the advocacy team, training community volunteers as expert clients, peer to peer supporters and engaging in national, and international advocacy and resource mobilization to fight TB. Currently we working on advocating for TPT for household contacts and TB vaccine, inclusion of pregnant and breastfeeding persons to be included in TB treatment and vaccine research. | |
| Do you know about the UNHLM declaration: | Yes |
Specializations / Areas of Work | |
|
Advocacy Civil Society and Community Engagement Engaging political leaders and ensuring inclusive leadership Research and Development Technical Assistance Working on Community, Rights and Gender (CRG) Working on Key Populations related to TB |
Other Organization Information | |
| Total number of staff in your organization: | 11 - 25 |
| Number of full-time staff who are directly involved with TB: | 1 - 5 |
| Number of part-time staff who are directly involved with TB: | 1 - 5 |
| Number of volunteers who are directly involved with TB: | 51 - 99 |
| How did you hear about the Stop TB Partnership: | Attendance at a TB related event |
| If you were informed or referred by another partner of the Stop TB Partnership please tell us who: | |
| Why do you wish join the Stop TB Partnership: | Resource mobilization |
| Are you a member of a Stop TB national partnership: | No |
| Are you in contact with your national TB programme: | Yes |
| Please tell us how your organization is contributing to your country's national TB control plan: | |
| COWLHA is involved in NTLEP technical working group. Engages in national review of strategic plans. supplement the work of NTLEP by engaging in community advocacy, training and awareness of new developments of health care workers and community volunteers. Provide feedback through CLM |
|
Geographical Reach | |
| Which country is your headquarters located in: | Malawi |
| Which countries do you do operate in: (This includes countries you are conducting activities in) |
Malawi |
Contribution | |
| Please tell us how your organization will contribute to the Global Plan to Stop TB by briefly describing its involvement in any of the areas of work listed below: | |
|
TB Care Delivery: COWLHA is a member of Fight AIDS Coalition (2019) and Diagnostic Equity Coalition (2024) where we have been involved in advocating for new diagnostic tools for efficient TB testing and diagnosis. And we have been engaged in the 5 Dollar COWLHA has been working on TB advocacy for TB preventive Therapy and community mobilization to increase demand for shorter course TPT and treatment. COWLHA has embarked on advocating for inclusion of 3HP in the national guidelines of Tb and HIV as well as the scale up of TPT especially 3 HP for all eligible clients. COWLHA has engaged with of Global TB Advocacy and has been involved in TB/TPT advocacy and international participation through Treatment Action Group (TAG), COWLHA is a member of Fight AIDS Coalition advocating for advanced HIV disease scale up with O'Neil George Town university since 2019, and also conducting a campaign on AHD with support from COMPASS/AVAC which also focusses on TB short course treatment and prevention. COWLHA has engaged community volunteers in community mobilization and trained them together with health facility providers on the TPT. Community supporters conduct door to door community mobilization and follow up of TB cases as well as refer them for care if identified, so too referring households contacts for screening and TPT initiation. COWLHA engages in advocacy and information and awareness sharing to the community. TB-HIV: COWLHA has worked on HIV issues since 2006 when it was established and HIV cuts across all its programming areas. The HIV interventions include community advocacy meetings to mobilize people for HIV testing and counselling; engagements with duty bearers like traditional and faith leaders on issues of HIV stigma and discrimination which hamper efforts like HIV testing; adherence to treatment, care and support; prevention of vertical HIV transmission from mother to child; treatment literacy; advocacy towards better HIV services such as ARVs and viral load testing services; training mentor mothers to trace loss to follow up of Option B+ cases; training of expert clients to trace defaulters of ART/PMTCT program; training of women's rights protection committees to ensure uptake of quality HIV services; training of community counsellors and health care providers on the side effects of ARVs and provision of psychosocial support to people living with HIV through support groups. Together with MANERELA and Just Associates, COWLHA has implemented Treatment Literacy with their members and they even developed a training manual for Treatment Literacy. COWHA has worked with young people on ART adherence, risk identification to reduce stigma among the youths, formation of youths’ support groups. WE have trained peer educators on Thandizo tool a tool that helps identify issues of concern and support among young people living with HIV, COWLHA has a project running on adolescence mothers, their children and spouses on reducing infection, ART adherence and access to SRHR and economic empowerment. Currently COWLHA is implementing the project on Bringing Kids Back to care ensuring that CHLHIV are given a priority in HIV care and enhancing community participation in case finding, treatment retention and continued care. With support from VIIV Health we are implementing a project on Adolescent mothers LHIV and their children and spouses on PMTCT/EMTCT, empowerment/IGAs and nutrition support. COWLHA is a member of the Paediatric/EMTCT TWG and has been engaged as one of the CSOs in the validation of EMTCT in Malawi. COWLHA also belongs to HIV prevention, treatment and care, differentiated ART services and AHD TWGs.COWLHA has been engaged in TPT advocacy and scale up in all facilities in Malawi. Laboratory Strengthening: Treatment Action Group (TAG) supported COWLHA in 2020 to develop a CLM toolkit for TB Diagnostic and Testing which was disseminated to various stakeholders. This tool helps to analyses and identify gaps in the laboratory systems and informs government on areas to address in order to improve diagnostics and testing New Diagnostics: COWLHA has been part of the $5 campaign advocating for reduced costs of diagnostic tools as well as the introduction of CD4 test machines for AHD diagnosis. COWLHA was and is engaged in PEPFAR and Global Fund processes where advocacy for inclusion of new technologies in the concepts notes/COP was done. COWLHA also participates in the TPMAP group that advocated for marketing and cost of goods and pricing. New TB Drugs: As part of the international advocacy team, COWLHA has advocated for new shorter regimes and engaged in committees. We managed to advocate for Malawi to include 3HP as a choice of TPT in the national strategic plan and clinical guidelines, as well as NTLEP to send a proposal to AURUM for pediatrics TPT (3HP)formulation. New TB Vaccines: Currently COWLHA is in the Washington DC Consensus Community group WHO working group, VAX ARM and SMART4TB groups advocating for further TB research to include pregnant and lactating mothers. Research: COWLHA conducted a research on intimate partner violence focusing of HIV and TB in 2014 supported by UN Women, In 2015 conducted a research on health care attitudes on sex workers supported by Southern Africa Litigation Center (SALC) and in 2022 conducted a National Spending Assessment (NASA) for Malawi CSOs on HIV supported by UNAIDS. |
|
Declaration | |
| Declaration of interests: No conflicts of interest were delacred. | |
| Application date: | November 12, 2024 |
| Last updated: | April 14, 2025 |