Access to HIV Services for Mobile and Migrant Populations in Antigua

Discussion and Conclusions based upon the NGO Focus Group
The various NGO’s all offer very good services, some exclusively and others overlap.
Apart from the Antigua Planned Parenthood Association (APPA) who could not identify
the origin of many clients, the others all do work with a large migrant population and
they all work with persons who are at risk of becoming HIV+.
The contact information for some of these agencies is not easily accessible, except
someone knows what they are looking for. One gets the impression listening to the group
that they did not receive adequate support from the government and this hampered their
ability to give more care.
Recommendations based upon the NGO Focus Group
Create a database of referral information so that when migrant populations have
certain needs, the various NGO’s would know where to refer them. A flyer in
English and Spanish with all available organizations and their role will be very
useful.
NGO’s can come together to create a policy document on procedures for
o Meeting the needs of migrants.
o The use of prophylaxis and present it to the AIDS secretariat to present to
the Ministry of health.
Grant writing could be conducted as a group to ensure that more funding is filtered
through the NGO’s so that they will be able to provide more or improved services
Provide train-the-trainers workshops for NGO directors so that they can further train
the staff in best practices to offer support to members of the most at risk populations
including migrants.
Encourage collaboration of NGO’s so that there is better teamwork so that the
migrant and mobile populations could be better served.
The NAP office could assist NGO’s with procuring condoms since they all seem to
have a good history of distribution, but sometimes are unable to due to lack of
supplies.
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