As part of our transition strategy, Avert is handing over ownership of the Southern African version of Boost to OPHID. OPHID will continue to roll Boost out to organisations working with community health workers and peer educators in Zimbabwe and across Southern Africa.
Avert first partnered with OPHID in 2019 to develop the Boost mobile app to supports the ongoing learning of their community health workers and peer educators in Zimbabwe. Boost launched at the end of January 2020.
OPHID was one of two Zimbabwean NGOs that worked with Avert to evaluate and collect lessons learned from the first phase of the Boost project, to help us to understand the impact of the app on community health workers’ ability and effectiveness.
Avert and OPHID subsequently worked together on the follow-up Boost in Zimbabwe project (2021-24), which integrated Boost within OPHID’s wider programming and gathered more learning on its impact.
Avert has been a truly collaborative partner dedicated to engaging with local stakeholders, including community health workers, and developing tools and strategies that address realities on the ground. Our work with Avert has helped to strengthen community health worker confidence and the quality of health services they provide.
OPHID is a local non-profit human development Zimbabwean organization that develops and implements innovative approaches and strategies to strengthen the provision of quality HIV prevention, care and treatment services. Additionally, its increasingly diversified portfolio is reaching people who need mental health care and support, social protection, non-communicable diseases (NCDs), maternal and child health stemming from its growing research hub status. Its family centered approach to health care provides enhanced access for communities to comprehensive Maternal, Neonatal and Child Health and Sexual and Reproductive Health services.
The organization collaborates closely with the Ministry of Health and Child Care and has developed partnerships with local and regional organizations and research institutions to ensure that Zimbabwean children, adolescents and young people, women and men have enhanced access to quality HIV care and treatment, Tuberculosis (TB), Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) of HIV, Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH),Maternal, Neonatal and Child Health (MNCH) Services, NCDs, Mental Health and Social Protection.