What is Community Participation

An estimated 39.5 million people are living with HIV worldwide. There were 4.3 million new infections in 2006 with 2.8 million (65%) of these occurring in sub-Saharan Africa with important increases in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, where there are some indications that infection rates have risen by more than 50% since 2004. In 2006, 2.9 million people died of AIDS-related illnesses (UNAIDS, 2006). The continued increase in new HIV infection is a call for concern. It is imperative that more innovative ways of combating the infections are found sooner. There is an enormous body of evidence that HIV infection is caused mainly by sexual contact. There is also undisputed evidence that there are other contributing factors such as extreme poverty, survival sex, gender inequality, lack of education, fatalism, religious barriers and others. This chapter seeks to support the need to do more research in finding new technologies and innovative ways of dealing with the spread of HIV. The chapter suggests that the involvement of researched communities be effectively involved. Involving communities in finding solutions will help, in that research protocols and health programmes will take into account the cultural acceptability of the new technologies and systems and ensure that recipients of health services become effective organs of change. The chapter seeks to highlight the fact that, if the recipients are involved in all stages of development of health programmes, including technologies, we may begin to see changes in how new technologies are taken up or may shift toward getting technologies that are acceptable. There are various suggested and implemented ways which aid in achieving the protection for individuals and communities; such as community involvement, community participation and community education (Collins, 2002; Gupta 2002), this chapter will focus on community education and a proposal for a community principle.