AIDS Project Los Angeles (APLA), India
AIDS Project Los Angeles is one of the largest AIDS Service organizations in the United States. In 2005, APLA launched a partnership with the Y.R. Gaitonde Center for AIDS Research and Education (YRG CARE) in India. YRG Care, founded by the first clinician to document HIV in India (Dr Suniti Solomon), provides low-cost and free medical care to poor men, women and children. This grant focuses on the APLA and YRG Care project, “Women’s Project,” which seeks to provide comprehensive HIV/AIDS services to women in India.

International Center for Research on Women, India
Since the early 1990’s, ICRW has been one of the first organizations to focus on the rapid spread of HIV/AIDS among women in developing countries, and has conducted extensive research on how social, economic and gender factors fuel the spread of HIV infection among women.  Key accomplishments in the HIV/AIDS area include research on HIV discrimination and stigma and the gender factors that exacerbate the stigma and research on the link between women’s vulnerability in the AIDS epidemic and domestic violence.  ICRW has previously worked on projects with CARE India specific to sex workers in India, more specifically in Andhra Pradesh (southern India) to reduce stigma and violence.  This provides them with experience for their proposed work.  Inner Spaces Outer Faces Initiative (ISOFI) is an ongoing collaboration between ICRW and CARE India in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh (northern India).  ISOFI addresses the underlying causes of sexual health risk by integrating gender and sexuality into existing reproductive health and HIV programs.  ICRW plans on collecting baseline and endline quantitative and qualitative data from samples of sex workers.  Quantitative outcome measures will include sex workers’ knowledge of HIV and prevention methods; access to services and technologies; perceptions and experiences of stigma, discrimination and violence; self-efficacy to practice protective behaviors; condom use; self-esteem; and indicators of social capital, such as participation in groups and levels of perceived trust and solidarity among sex workers and between sex workers and other groups. Qualitative data will supplement the quantitative data and will permit an understanding of whether norms around gender, sexuality, and sex work have shifted among sex workers and gatekeepers.