Delivering Health and Social Services in Beria City, Mozambique

WEI/Bantwana and partners delivered 5,642 health and social services during a One-Stop event in Beira City, Mozambique.

In late June 2018, Bantwana, through the USAID-funded Força à Comunidade e Crianças (FCC) project in Mozambique, hosted a three-day, One-Stop event to maximize the provision and uptake of health, social and protection services in vulnerable communities in Beira City.

Beira City

The estimated HIV adult prevalence rate in Beira is The Beira corridor contains a road, rail and an underground oil pipeline that facilitate the movement of people and goods through the port, to and from the sub-region covering Mozambique and its neighboring, land-locked countries including Zimbabwe, Malawi, Zambia, South Africa, and DRC. Highly mobile sub-groups among the city’s population pose unique challenges to HIV prevention and response efforts due to their transient lifestyles. These include sex workers, truck and bus drivers, ship crew, formal and informal traders, and customs clearing agents. In addition, poverty drives adolescent girls and young women to engage in risky behaviors like transactional sex, often without the use of protection. This increases all groups’ susceptibility to HIV infection.

I’m so happy I have gone for HIV test for the first time in my life thanks to One-Stop. The result is negative. But the service is positive!

– Student, 17

One-Stop Overview

WEI/Bantwana’s collaborative One-Stop events enable DREAMS clinical and community partners, along with government and private sector partners, to efficiently mobilize and provide a comprehensive package of sexual and reproductive health services, including HTC and GBV prevention and response services, to vulnerable communities. WEI/Bantwana’s One-Stop strategy is designed to serve both project and non-project beneficiaries. In addition to delivering high quality health and social services in one venue at the doorstep of communities, One-Stop events also provide effective and friendly platforms to disseminate correct health information and to educate community members on the importance and availability of other key health and social protection services, such as family planning methods, birth registration, acquisition of poverty certificates, identification cards and unique tax identification numbers.

I was attended to quickly and it was of high quality. I was able to get a poverty certificate for my child. I would like to urge other women to take this opportunity since the One Stop is open to all and access is simple.

– Helena, widow and mother of four children

Beira One-Stop: Multi-Sectoral Approach

A number of institutions from multiple sectors came together to provide essential services. Joint planning and execution of the One-Stop event enabled these different institutions and groups to work closely together and provide a number of integrated services to communities in a timely manner; coordination that ultimately fostered a deep appreciation of one another’s roles in improving the health and well-being of families. These joint efforts set the foundation to strengthen local referral and network systems for continued collaboration to better serve and meet the needs of vulnerable communities.

Key Results

In Beira, a total of 5,462 services were provided through the One-Stop event. Thirty-seven percent of services were provided to FCC/DREAMS project beneficiaries. Critical health services addressing GBV (13%) and HIV screenings (11%) were provided to nearly a quarter of One-Stop attendees.

The integrated nature of the event also led to an increase in the uptake of multiple services for all community members, including the most highly vulnerable, at-risk sub-groups. Participants commented on their overall satisfaction with an appreciation of the One-Stop services received in the neighborhood. Of those screened, 9% went on to receive immediate, on-site HTC services. Essential social services including birth registration, provision of identification cards, or poverty certificates were highly sought by attendees of the event, indicating the strong need for increased access to these services by vulnerable communities.

We got family planning services. I feel very good. As the husband, I was very worried. I had many questions based on some wrong information out there about FP. People think that FP is bad. I am happy with the FP information and service we got today.

– Noel, married male who accompanied his wife 

FCC is an initiative aimed at improving and expanding evidenced-based models of integrated support for OVC and their households. WEI/Bantwana implements this USAID funded project in collaboration with the Government of Mozambique and a range of local implementing partners to reach over 100,000 vulnerable children and adolescents with integrated services to help them thrive and grow into productive and healthy adults.