Poster Session Conference Day 3

Now thanks to the administratoin and staff who supported me at St. George's University, I was able to present the poster which the International AIDS Conference approved and now has listed on their CD files from the program, and also will be given to all conference participants for further reviewing.
The poster was possible through my work with the Prison Peer Educator Project, "Project START- A Peer Education Program on HIV Outreach, Prevention and Stigma Reduction", and was funded by the National AIDS Directorate through a grant written for such, and approved by the Ministry of Health. The project spanned over 6 months and included training inmates and staff about HIV and STI's, and provided them also with group facilitation skills workshops so that they would then be able to present the material to their peers. The prison administration initially identified 8 inmates, but expanded it to 21 (both male and female) who graduate the progtram.
The outcomes of the program included but not limited to:
1- increased respect by individual inmate and fellow inmates
2- education of at least 50% of the prison populatoin (actualize 97.3%)
3- acquisition of voluntary HIV testing of prison inmates of at least 20% (actualized 95%) with weekly availability for further testing of inmates, guards and new intakes
4- coordination with community agencies upon discharge of inmates for continuance of skills with community HIV educatoin programs
The complete evaluation of the project is available through the NAD office with surveys, statistics, etc. It has been viewed as such great success through the associated factions of NAD and UNGASS, that now it is being distributed to other Caribbean countries for use as demonstration projects in their penal systems as a prevention strategy for disease management.

(Note the notification for the abstract:
AIDS 2008 - Your abstract number [A-072-0167-01226]
AIDS 2008 Abstract Team
ViewWednesday, June 25, 2008 10:00:21 AM
To:docepocrates@yahoo.com

Dear Dr. Marianne SzauerArritt, AIDS 2008 is approaching and we are hereby sending you the final abstract number for your abstract accepted for publication: Abstract title: Project START: prison peer education program on HIV outreach, prevention and stigma reductionAbstract number: CDC0576.

We would also like to remind you of the conference embargo policy:An abstract cannot be submitted if it has been previously published or presented, unless there are major updates in the data. If preliminary or partial data has been published, the author is required to indicate the details of the conference, meeting or journal. The content of an abstract is under embargo from the time of submission until notification of acceptance.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have questions or need further information.
Yours sincerely,
Nicholas Durand, Chair
AIDS 2008 Abstract Team)