Background

With support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through PEPFAR, women between 14 to 45 years old are benefiting from HIV intervention messages and products while frequenting hair salons in Tanzania. The Jipende! (Love Yourself!) Program developed Centers for Women’s Health in Beauty Salons and trained beauty salon owners and assistants to provide information and advice on HIV prevention and women’s health, and to sell male and female condoms.

In 2009, the T-MARC Project conducted a feasibility study of beauty salons located in so called “hot spots,” or places where high-risk sexual behaviour is known to take place, in Dar es Salaam. The study ex¬amined the interaction between hair dressers and their clients as a potential avenue to disseminate health education messages and to increase awareness of HIV and other reproductive health issues. The study also examined the potential and receptivity of the salons to serve as retail outlets for male and female condoms for a small margin. Based on the findings, the Jipende! Program was developed.

The programme utilizes salon attendants to provide peer educa¬tion on health issues for women, and uses the salons as an informal outlet for selling affordable male and female condoms to the salon clients, thus providing additional income to the salon. In Tanzania, as in other parts of Africa, hair salons are places where women often loosen up and talk about things important to them, like their relationships and their children. That makes them potentially good places to introduce new ideas and information in women’s health and to improve condom availability at a community level.

In the first phase of the program, salons were selected in high-risk areas, hotspots near bars and nightclubs. In Dar es Salaam, 21 beauty salons became Jipende! Centers for Women’s Health.

In the second phase, T-MARC Tanzania has added 25 more salons in priority hot spot areas of Dar es Salaam and 25 salons near hotspot areas in Mbeya. In addition to stocking and selling both male and female condoms, the programme trains beauticians to provide advice on reproductive health, HIV prevention, understanding and avoiding sexually transmitted infections, as well as cervical and breast cancer. In addition, the training seeks to build the entrepreneurial skills of the participants.

The beauticians are trained to keep records of the number of health talks they have had with clients so that T-MARC can monitor the number of people who are reached. The owners of the salons have come to recognise the potential benefits of being a Jipende! salon in terms of increased income from condom sales and increased number of clients coming to the salon seeking advice.

About T-MARC Tanzania

T-MARC Tanzania is an independent, Tanzanian, not-for-profit, non-governmental organisation working in Tanzania, for the benefit of Tanzanians. T-MARC employs a dynamic approach, bringing together public and private stakeholders to develop and expand consumer markets for a broad range of health products. T-MARC also promotes behaviour change through evidence-based practices that make a positive health and social impact within the development field. These practices, products and strategies are in the areas of infectious diseases, like HIV/AIDS and malaria, reproductive health, water/sanitation, child survival and nutrition. These interventions specifically target vulnerable, at risk and low income populations.

T-MARC works with an array of non-profit, donor and commercial partners to socially market brands such as Dume male condoms, Lady Pepeta female condoms and Flexi-P oral contraceptives.

For more information about this programme or about T-MARC Tanzania, please contact Maurice Chirimi at +255 22 2700772/4 or e-mail info@tmarc.or.tz.

This publication is made possible by the support of the American People through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID.) The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of T-MARC Tanzania and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.