Hello, my name is Ailie Judd, I am 25 and a qualified HIV Social Worker from Cardiff, UK. I completed my Masters in Social Work last August and I have spent the last year working for a small NGO called Azafady in south east Madagascar.

I went out to the small coastal town of Fort Dauphin last October to improve Azafady’s HIV and STD youth behavior change programme, as they had experienced difficulties reaching young pregnant and married women.

I led a research project to improve HIV prevention efforts with this target group. I was amazed at how social inequality was reinforcing the women’s engagement in high risk behavior and increasing their vulnerability to contracting HIV.

In the region over 90% of the population live below the poverty line and illiteracy is as high as 80%. Girls are encouraged to marry or get pregnant from as young as 12 years old as their family quite simply cannot afford to feed them. With such high illiteracy and unemployment, the main form of generating an income for women is through sex working. Multiple partners and infidelity is common in the Malagasy culture and there is even a custom which makes it socially acceptable for a husband to have sex with other women when his wife is just about to or has just given birth.

As a result, STD rates in the town are extremely high, at around 40% for women and HIV, even though is still low has risen by 64% in the last 4 years. It seems Madagascar is following in the footsteps of other African nations, but we still have time to prevent this devastating disease from obliterating this beautiful country.

This is why when I returned to the UK I entered the Vodafone World of Difference competition and out of 2500 applicants I have got down to the final 4 of which the public vote on Facebook. The winning prize is £45,000 which would enable us to implement a specialised HIV prevention programme with pregnant women. This would include the first ever antenatal group and capacity building of 6 women’s associations, to educate, empower and unite women so they make informed decisions around their sexual health. So it is the public which decides whether this vital project will go ahead.

So please vote by following the link and encourage others to do the same. Every vote counts and could make the World of Difference to the young women of south east Madagascar.

http://www.facebook.com/worldofdifference?ref=search#!/worldofdifference?v=app_20678178440&ref=search

Many thanks

Ailie.

This was a guest post that was sent to us by Ailie Judd herself, we were so inspired by the work that she was doing in Madagascar that we have asked her to send us regular blog updates about the Vodafone: World Of Difference competition and her time there – so watch this space…