ACHIEVE Inc.
Advocates in Motion
PUBLISHED: SEPTEMBER 2009

Action for Health Initiatives (ACHIEVE), Inc. is a non-stock, non-profit organization based in Quezon City, was established in 2000 mainly to, as stated in the group’s Web site:

1. To promote human rights, particularly health, reproductive and sexual rights of migrant workers and their families, including those infected with and affected by HIV/ and AIDS;
2. To mainstream migration and HIV/AIDS as specific areas of concern in policy and program development at local, national and regional levels;
3. To undertake participatory action research (PAR) on issues relating to migration, gender, sexuality, health and development as basis in the formulation and implementation of the HIV and AIDS responses;
4. To build and enhance capacities of migrant workers and their families including those infected with and affected by HIV and AIDS to enable them to participate in policy and program development addressing migration and HIV and AIDS issues; and
5. To address the issue of women‘s vulnerability to HIV through policy advocacy, programme development, community mobilization and support for women living with HIV/AIDS. 

Mainly, ACHIEVE accomplishes its goals through “partnership and linkage-building with other stakeholders working on issues affecting migrant workers, their families, people living with HIV/AIDS and women.”

ACHIEVE’s presence is, without a doubt, important – after all, prior to 2008, overseas Filipino workers (estimated to reach 10% of the total 92 million Philippine population), were the group of people with the highest number of HIV/AIDS infection, e.g. in 2007, 1,042 of the recorded 2,997 Filipinos with HIV were OFWs for October alone (broken down as: 340 were seafarers, 178 were domestic employers, 94 were employees, 79 were entertainers, and 64 were health workers).

With the support of, among others, DGIS (Directorate General for International Cooperation, Dutch Government) through CARAM-Asia, Program Acceleration Funds-Joint United Nations Program on Migration and HIV/AIDS (PAF-UNAIDS), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Global Fund for AIDS TB and Malaria (GFATM)-Philippines, International Organization of Migration (IOM), Ford Foundation-Philippines, Philippine HIV/AIDS Support Program (PHANSUP), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the UNDP Regional Office (formerly in New Delhi), the achievements of ACHIEVE , a member of the Coordination of Action Research on AIDS and Mobility in Asia (CARAM-Asia), a regional network of organizations working on migration and HIV/AIDS issues in the Asian region, are now numerous.

These include skills building activities (e.g. fora, workshops, training and seminars), since 2001, developed and implemented HIV education programmes with communities and organizations of migrant workers and female spouses in the Antique Province, Davao City, and Mountain Province), regional campaigns (e.g. access to health for migrants, empowerment of migrant workers living with HIV, and campaign against mandatory HIV antibody testing), and publications (e.g. On the Move: A Toolkit of HIV Prevention Programmes for Migrant Workers, Mga Bagong Bayani: Dapat Ligtas sa HIV, Health at Stake: Access to Health of Overseas Filipino Workers  2005 Report, and Abot-Kamay: Gabay Para sa HIV/AIDS Counselors Para sa mga OFWs.