Organisations using Stepping Stones

Many international NGOs as well as national and local NGOs now run Stepping Stones workshops in communities.

o ActionAid is one organisation that has done much to promote the use of Stepping Stones in many of the countries where it works, supported the Strategies for Hope project in its original development of the material, and was publisher of the original manual.

o ACORD, the Agency for Cooperation Research and Development, has been using Stepping Stones for some years with its partners in various countries in Africa, and has written a report about its adaptation and use in Tanzania. It is currently conducting a three-year action-research study which will monitor the effects of the workshop on diverse communities in Tanzania, Uganda and Angola

o Concern has used Stepping Stones in a number of countries, including Mozambique, where all its staff received training, and in Burundi where it has been used in a variety of contexts, including a coffee processing plant.

o Christian Aid

o PLAN International

o Save the Children

There are also many other organisations, based in countries throughout the world, who are using Stepping Stones as part of their HIV prevention work. For example, Catholic AIDS Action in Namibia provided 341 Stepping Stones courses in Namibia in 2007/8, reaching 5,843 young people (mostly between 14 and 20 years). This is 2,486 young men and 3,357 young women.

However, Stepping Stones can pose huge challenges for some implementing organisations. It overturns conventional assumptions about “we know best”, about hierarchies of knowledge and decision-making and about the appropriateness of Western bio-medical models of health education and health care. As people who have promoted Participatory Learning and Action (PLA/PRA) have discussed, “the policy environment and institutional culture within which PRAs are undertaken are important factors that influence, if not determine, the long term success, sustainability and replication of participatory processes.” (Thompson et al 1996, PLA Notes 27). Stepping Stones is no exception. If you would like to read more about this, click here to go to the IDS Participation Group website.

If you would like to know if an organisation is already using Stepping Stones in your part of the world, please contact us.

Individual contacts


There are also some key individuals who have done much to promote and support others’ use of Stepping Stones. For example Gill Gordon now of the International HIV/AIDS Alliance, has run training and adaptation workshops in many countries, and also wrote the training and adaptation guidelines.

Patience Maengamhuru, Stepping Stones Regional Coordinator for Southern Africa (fact@pci.co.zw), Lovemore Magwere and their colleagues have done much to promote Stepping Stones across the region - please see our training page in Southern Africa (Mozambique).

Baron Oron has run many training programmes in Eastern Africa (please see our training in East Africa).

Brigitte Syamalevwe, who was herself HIV positive and a feminist theologian, led Stepping Stones workshops in Zambia and in neighbouring DRC. (Brigitte died in February 2003.)

See also the Training section for the names of individual trainers.

For more information, please feel free to contact us.