Livelihoods Intervention With Urban Refugee Youth in Kampala, Uganda

Displaced and refugee youth in Uganda are more vulnerable to health risks due to financial insecurity. As such, the investigators aim to explore the utility of an intervention aimed at improving livelihoods, called Creating Futures. Creating Futures is a group intervention that aims to help young people build their livelihoods, and was designed for use with youth (18-24) in urban informal settlements in South Africa. Since there is a dearth of knowledge regarding efficacious interventions in refugee camps/settlements to engage young people in HIV testing and linkage to care, the investigators will harness various health promotion techniques including mHealth, comics, and the Creating Futures livelihoods intervention to address the urgent needs for: 1) HIV testing interventions with refugee/displaced adolescent and young people in Kampala, and 2) innovative HIV self test (HIVST) delivery strategies to increase linkage to confirmatory testing and HIV care. The investigators will conduct a three-arm cluster randomized controlled trial (cRCT) to evaluate the effectiveness of HIVST delivery methods among AYP living in Kampala. The specific objectives are to: Evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of: 1) HIVST alone; 2) HIVST in combination with mHealth; and 3) HIVST, mHealth and Creating Futures in combination in increasing routine HIV testing, HIV status knowledge, and linkage to confirmatory testing and HIV care. The investigators aim to examine if adding a livelihoods program to HIV self-testing improves HIV prevention outcomes and other facets of well-being among urban refugee youth in Kampala.