HIV/AIDS 

Coverage: 100 villages in Gadag district

SAMRAKSHA is an HIV/AIDS Resource Group.

Samraksha was incubated by SAMUHA and is now an independent Trust.

Samraksha continues to manage such HIV/AIDS interventions that have been retained by Samuha. Currently, Samraksha is managing the Link Worker Programme in Gadag district, which reaches out to vulnerable and at risk populations at the village level and connects them with sevices for HIV prevention, care and support. 

Samraksha translates as "equal protection" in Sanskrit. Samraksha works towards the empowerment of people vunerable to and most affected by HIV and in this work, Samraksha firmly believes that communities themselves are the best agents of change and the programmes Samraksha designs and implements are attuned to this belief.

As a result, Samraksha focuses on community strengthening at multiple levels : solidarity building among community members, capacity building among community leaders, strengthening institutions which have sprung up from within the community,  building relationships between communities through knowledge and inspiration sharing.

Samraksha has worked with some extremely marginalized groups like women in sex work, sexual minorities and people living with and affected by HIV. Much of this work has had a dramatic effect on the communities and considerably changed the scope of intervention. For instance what began as HIV prevention activities among women in sex work and sexual minorities, was also able to simultaneously focus on community strengthening. As a result community based organizations representing the interests of these groups emerged at the district level, and now these organizations are themselves managing the HIV prevention programmes.