Mission and Vision
SAT's Vision
SAT foresees a Southern Africa in which the inherent strengths of communities are upheld, supported, mobilised and deepened in order to decrease the incidence of HIV and AIDS, improve quality of life and contribute towards achieving the millennium development goals for all people of the region.
SAT envisages itself being a centre of excellence in facilitating the development of technical and organisational HIV and AIDS community competence.
SAT's Mission
SAT contributes to making resources work for communities. Community HIV and AIDS competence is enhanced via sub-granting linked to focused capacity enhancement, south-to-south skills exchange, experience sharing via School Without Walls and action research, and enhancing the voices of communities to become advocates for policy change.
SAT works directly and via its partners, to increase the HIV and AIDS competence of communities in Southern Africa. In this work SAT recognises and tackles the underlying factors such as socio economic and gender inequalities, which make communities and individuals vulnerable. SAT also embraces and promotes the strengths, ideas and power inherent in communities to resolve their own problems and improve their lives.
SAT's Goal
The strategic goal of SAT is to increase community HIV and AIDS competence in Southern Africa in order for communities to reduce HIV incidences, improve access and adherence to treatment, provide adequate care and support and to mitigate the impact of the epidemic.
SAT's Values
SAT's work is underpinned by a belief and understanding that communities are best placed to define their own needs. SAT supports community values that encourage respect for others and a willingness to work together to find solutions, in the spirit of solidarity, compassion and mutual support.
SAT works with a rights-based approach and it respects diversity and promotes the equality of all people without distinction of any kind, such as race, ethnicity, colour, sex, gender, sexual orientation, HIV status, language and religion, political or other opinion. Promotion of gender equality and sexual and reproductive health and rights are central to SAT's values. SAT also subscribes to the NGO code of good practice.
SAT's brief history;
The southern African AIDS Trust (SAT) today, was established in Zimbabwe in 1990 as 'The Southern African AIDS Training Programme', then a project of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) implemented by the Canadian Public Health Association (CPHA). From 1991, SAT started expanding into other countries in the region.
In 2003, SAT became an independent regional organisation, and was re-named the 'Southern African AIDS Trust' (SAT). Later in 2005, SAT moved its regional secretariat from Zimbabwe to South Africa, while maintaining a country office there.
SAT has since evolved from being a single donor funded project to a multi-donor funded regional programme through a Joint Financing Arrangement (JFA), with an ever expanding portfolio of work. Today SAT is operating in five countries (Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe) within the SADC region.