Empowering communities in the face of HIV/AIDS through STAR in Nagaland:
In the face of the aforesaid scenario, a project titled “Empowering communities in the face of HIV/AIDS through STAR in Nagaland” was initiated in the year 2007 with the support of the HIV Thematic Unit of Action Aid International. Under the programme, 4 STAR circles were formed out of which 2 are women group and 2 men group.
The group consisted of Intravenous drug Users and their partners and each group had 20 – 25 members. The functioning of the STAR circles in VK Town and Satakha have raised a lot of issues especially in the women’s circles regarding the status of HIV and AIDS in their communities, the problems of alcoholism and addiction and the roles of different stakeholders in addressing the same.
Moreover, they were able to address to the different issues that were raised by the circle members. Thus, the STAR circles were able to bring about social change though in small ways.