Pact’s Community REACH program is funded through USAID’s Global Bureau for Health’s Office of HIV/AIDS and designed to facilitate the efficient flow of grant funds to organizations playing valuable roles in the struggle against HIV/AIDS. It does this by promoting both scaling-up of successful programs and start-up of new programs with potential for demonstrable impact in primary prevention and education, voluntary counseling and testing, and care for those living with HIV and AIDS. Community REACH funds local NGOs, faith-based organizations (FBOs), people living with AIDS associations, and international organizations working at the grassroots level.

Vision and mission
Community REACH envisions communities united by courage and hope, equipped with strengthened capacity, and energized by ownership to lead an expanded fight against HIV/AIDS. This fight will result in decreasing transmission of HIV, better care for those living with HIV/AIDS, especially among the most vulnerable and a safer, more interconnected world.

The mission of Community REACH is to rapidly make support available to community-based HIV/AIDS programs reaching the most vulnerable groups that are unserved or underserved with the most needed services.

Community REACH results as of January 2005
To date Pact’s Community REACH program has over 45 grant programs in 21 countries – including 12 President’s Emergency Plan countries. The current portfolio is close to $8 million dollars for work with over 80 non-governmental organizations implementing projects in over 100 communities in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Eurasia. At mid-point in the five-year program, Community REACH has the following results:

• 500,000 individuals received prevention messages
• 94,000 people living with HIV/AIDS and Orphans and Vulnerable children received care and support services
• 27,000 youth received VCT services
• 9,000 individuals received training in HIV/AIDS service delivery

Community REACH programs are predominantly competitively awarded through requests for applications (RFAs) and annual program statements (APS) for work in President’s Emergency Plan and other countries worldwide.

• Care and support-community/home-based networks
• Youth VCT linkages and referrals
• Community-based interventions that target stigma and discrimination
• Services for street children
• Support to people living with HIV and AIDS networks
• Improved Support to Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC)