About Us
Who We Are
In 2004, the American International Health Alliance (AIHA) founded the HIV/AIDS Twinning Center, a capacity-building mechanism for supporting the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).
The Twinning Center focuses on strengthening national HIV/AIDS strategies through the creation of peer-to-peer, voluntary relationships between institutions that provide HIV/AIDS-related care and treatment services, and has supported human and institutional capacity building using exchanges, training, and technical assistance.
The Volunteer Healthcare Corps (VHC) is a distinct but complementary component of this larger institutional “twinning” program targeted to rapidly expand the pool of trained providers, managers, and allied health staff delivering quality HIV/AIDS care to people living with HIV/AIDS.
The VHC initiative is designed to provide an opportunity for skilled professionals from varying fields to serve the cause of global health by volunteering their time and expertise. It is part of USAID's Volunteers for Prosperity program and also supports President Obama's volunteer initiative under the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act of 2009.
As of May 2011, the VHC has placed a total of 87 volunteers in Botswana, Ethiopia, Mozambique, South Africa, and Tanzania. Together, these skilled individuals have contributed a remarkable total of 935 months of professional service (the equivalent of 78 years) toward building lasting health system capacity at their host organizations.
Currently, AIHA is working to increase the use of the VHC to directly support our Twinning Center partnerships by providing ongoing technical assistance to host country partners between partnership exchanges.
For a two-page overview of the VHC initiative, please click here.
To read stories from VHC volunteers on the front lines of the fight against HIV/AIDS, please click here.
Updated May 17, 2011
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