By Xuyang Jingjing

   Murong Feng, a 31-year-old activist from Hebei Province in northern China, had attended several training workshops for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) related to HIV/AIDS prevention before he came to Beijing last October for another one.

  This time, the leading member of Ai Zhi Guang (light of love) care group for homosexuality--found the trainers different.

  Other training courses for grassroots organizations like Ai Zhi Guang, which was founded in March 2006, were all organized by NGOs, Murong observed. Some might involve local government institutions like district centers of disease control.

  But the October training program for NGOs was the first of its kind to be co-hosted by a national government organization and leading academic institutions.

  "The instructors are professors and experts specialized in AIDS pandemic studies and health management from such privileged institutions like the School of Public Health of Beijing University Health Science Center and Chinese Association of STD (sexually transmitted disease) and AIDS Prevention and Control," said Murong.

  "Through this training program, we gained a better understanding of project management," said Murong, "We need to continue enhancing our organization, improve the quality of our members." The five-day training workshop was initiated by the China AIDS Roadmap Tactical Support (CHARTS) project under the office of the State Council HIV/AIDS Prevention Committee. A China-UK project, CHARTS, which involves funding from the Chinese government, UNAIDS, the British government and the Norwegian government, aims to strengthen China's strategic capacity to deliver an effective and coordinated response to HIV/AIDS through capacity building, supporting policy and training.

  Having sponsored training programs for officials from central and local governments in the past three years, the October workshop marked CHARTS?first effort to improve NGOs' capacity.

  "Our main purpose is to improve NGOs' ability to apply grants for their projects as well as the ability to plan, implement, supervise and evaluate their projects," said Shi Kai, professor from the School of Public Health and one of the instructors of the training program.

  Murong Feng was among the 20 representatives from 14 NGOs in 11 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities across China participating in the training. 

  Aside basic knowledge of HIV/AIDS, they learned about the current situation of AIDS prevention and control in China, as well as NGOs?participation and function, according to Prof. Shi.

  Through practice and teamwork, the participants improved their skills of project management, from planning, budgeting, application writing, implementation and all the way through to evaluation.

  All parties--officials, health workers and NGO members--feel the need of such training.

  According to the Ministry of Civil Affairs, there are now 230,000 officially registered NGOs throughout China. It is estimated some 500 of them dedicated to HIV/AIDS prevention and control at grassroots level.

  It is commonly recognized that NGOs have become indispensable in this work both in China and around the world, as they have advantages the governmental organizations could not match.

  "Rooted in the grassroots, we have better access to the HIV-infected or high-risk groups officials could not reach," said Murong. "It's easier for the target groups to relate to us and accept our help and care, and it's easier for us to communicate with them."

However, his and other NGOs in China are faced with similar problem: Both the funding resources and their capacity to get and manage them are limited.

 This handicap drives some NGOs to devote themselves to attracting funds while neglecting to learn the skills of management to become more efficient, observed Prof. Shi. Undesirable expertise and organizing capacity still pose as the downsides of NGOs.

"That gave rise to the need of such a training program," said Prof. Shi. "It is necessary to provide training to NGOs involved in HIV/AIDS prevention and control, and to enhance their management ability and operation mechanism, improve capacity and provide technical support."Courses on the training program included how to conceive a project and write an effective application letter for its funding from the sixth round of the Global Fund China AIDS program.

 The high level training was popular among the NGO activists from grassroots level.

"Although we had received trainings before in Chongqing, we still lack information about new policies due to geographic reasons,"said Xiong Weixiang, a key member of Lanyu Group, a Chongqing-based grassroots organization founded in March 2007 to help homosexuality groups and migrant workers with HIV/AIDS prevention and control.

This training workshop updated his knowledge of HIV/AIDS prevention and control and taught him practical skills, said Xiong, still a sophomore in the municipality of southwestern China.

 "We attend this training hoping to learn from the experts on AIDS and project management," said Xiong. "We will share our experiences and methods we learned here, which are new to us, with our colleagues back in Chongqing.?Having been a volunteer in HIV/AIDS prevention and control since 2006, Xiong said he believed the best way to learn is practice.

 "We mostly learn how to do it in our real work along the way, step by step," he said. "We learn how to do it through experience." Nevertheless training could facilitate such learning. "After this course, we are clearer about what we are doing,"Xiong said.

  With the support of GF5-- the fifth round of Global Fund China AIDS Program, Xiong and his colleagues have held outreach activities at high schools and universities as well as in public places, raising people's consciousness of HIV/AIDS.

  They also gave VCT tests to high-risk groups, running training courses for staff and volunteers, holding meetings with homosexuality groups and HIV positive people, and providing counseling and care.

  But both his and Murong's organizations lack long-term stable financial support. This is also a problem facing all the other NGOs in the field, who rely on funding to proceed with their projects.

The main funding sources for these grassroots NGOs come from state and local financial support, international co-operative project such as Global Fund, international organizations such as World Health Organization, and international NGOs, according to Prof. Shi.

  Starting this year, GF6 China AIDS Program will provide US$14 million to mobilize and support civil society in 15 program provinces for five years to strengthen and fill in gaps to scale up China AIDS prevention and control programs.

  While the cake still may not be big enough to sustain NGOs with their activities, participants at the training workshop found it also necessary to improve their capacity to make better use of the money they could obtain.

  "The environment we live in, though slowly improving, is not always desirable,"noted a trainee who identified himself as "crow" on the website of CHAIN--China HIV/AIDS Information Network. "We cannot stand there complaining, but must do a better job to improve ourselves. We should ask ourselves if we are capable to use the fund well and live up to the expectations of the donors and our target groups." Xiong Weixiang from Chongqing was also pleased that through the training program, "we were able to communicate with experts in this field and exchange experience with other organizations from across the country."

  Such face-to-face communication and experience exchange, he said, "are an effective way for capacity building of us NGOs concerning managing our respective organizations."

Xiong expects more high level training programs like this. "We need to constantly improve ourselves to carry forward our prevention and control work at the grassroots level," he said.

  Another round of training program was held in mid November, while more trainings of the caliber are on the organizers' plan.