Fundación Nimehuatzin

FUNDACION NIMEHUATZIN:

Over 20 years working to empower people to prevent the spread of HIV

FUNDACION NIMEHUATZIN, whose name comes from the indigenous Náhuatl language and means “we rise up together for a noble cause”, is a community-based, non-profit, non-governmental organization, dedicated exclusively to the prevention of HIV and AIDS through the promotion and defense of human rights.

MISSION

Contribute to sustainable human development through the prevention of HIV and AIDS, promoting the empowerment of individuals, with a focus on ethics, gender and Human Rights.

VISION

A society of empowered individuals, with high self-esteem, fully enjoying their rights and responsibilities, living plentifully with equality, health and well-being.

Even before the first case of HIV was registered in Nicaragua in 1987 the founders of Fundación Nimehuatzin were already doing community-based prevention work. In 1990, Fundación Nimehuatzin was awarded legal status as a non-profit organization, and was charged with the goal of continuing and expanding on the community-based work of its founders in order to reach the broader population inNicaragua.

Fundación Nimehuatzin promotes and offers a positive and liberating attitude in the face of AIDS, and works to improve the self-esteem, recognition, and social respect of persons affected by HIV and AIDS.

As an organization, Fundación Nimehuatzin encourages reflection on and analysis of the causes of the epidemic, including, but not limited to, peoples’ living conditions, poverty, lack of information or misinformation, prejudices and machismo. The work of the organization encourages the empowerment of individuals, contributes to the eradication of prejudices about sexuality, sexual preferences and sex work, as well as the social stigma against HIV. Fundación Nimehuatzin contributes to the elimination of fatalism and abandonment, and considers inequality, machismo and the subordination of women as risk factors and determinants of high-risk sexual practices.

Fundación Nimehuatzin is firmly convinced that ethical principles, the respect for human rights and direct attention to individuals affected by HIV are irreplaceable tools for prevention in the light of the current epidemic.

Through various projects, Fundación Nimehuatzin implements its institutional strategy, which is linked with the country’s National Strategy for the Control of STIs, HIV and AIDS of the Ministry of Health.

The internal functions of the organization are governed by institutional by-laws. Additionally, the organization has a Board of Directors and a permanent multidisciplinary staff. Fundación Nimehuatzin has several focus areas, which in practice, consist of programs that are in constant development. These four focus areas are:

a) courses about HIV, Human Rights and Development b) mass communication for prevention, c) research, d) bio-psychosocial services for people living with HIV and vulnerable communities.

Fundación Nimehuatzin is recognized by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), Office for Human Research Protection (OHRP).