Partner organisation: Ministry of Health and Child Care (MoHCC), The Organization for Public Health Interventions and Development (OPHID) and Indlela@HE2RO.
Purpose of the collaboration: This collaboration helps healthcare providers in Zimbabwe turn empathy into everyday practice. Uzwelo is already a valued approach for re-engaging clients who have interrupted HIV treatment, but it is applied inconsistently across facilities. Working together, MoHCC, OPHID, and Indlela are co-designing simple tools and prompts with frontline providers to:
- Make empathetic care easier to apply consistently in busy clinics
- Improve client retention and return-to-care across the HIV cascad
- Position Uzwelo for integration into the Welcome Back package and scale-up nationally.
Description of the collaboration: Indlela@HE2RO, collaborated with OPHID and the MoHCC, to strengthen Uzwelo, a structured, empathy-based approach grounded in Ubuntu principles. Uzwelo helps providers re-engage clients who have interrupted HIV treatment by building stronger provider–client relationships through empathy, perspective-taking, and shared problem-solving .The project applied behavioural science to make Uzwelo easier for providers to apply consistently in busy clinics using the NUDGE framework to guide the co-design process .
Pre-workshop site visits (November 2025)
Teams from MoHCC and OPHID, joined by provincial representatives visited Northern Suburbs Clinic in Bulawayo and Esigodhini Hospital in Matabeleland South., They observed service delivery, engaged with healthcare workers, and reviewed how the Uzwelo approach was being implemented in practice. These visits surfaced the real-world challenges providers face — and shaped the focus of the co-design workshop that followed.
Co-design workshop (3–5 December 2025, Bulawayo)
The three-day participatory co-design workshop brought together frontline healthcare providers, program implementers and policy makers from MoHCC. Together participants translated empathy into practical, observable behaviours that can be consistently applied within routine clinical workflows. They co-designed behaviourally informed prototypes, such as environmental prompts, recognition systems, and digital tools to support recall and application of Uzwelo practices. Participants also identified the need for standardised tools and guidance, such as SOPs and job aids, to support consistent implementation across facilities.
Post-workshop refinement
Following the workshop, prototypes were refined and prioritised based on feasibility and alignment with existing systems. recognition-based prototype, anchored in the CONNECT mnemonic, was selected as the most promising intervention to take forward. A follow-up site visit to Northern Suburbs Clinic was conducted to observe Uzwelo in practice, assess workflow integration, and gather further insights from healthcare providers.
What’s next
The next phase will focus on developing implementation-ready tools and integrating Uzwelo into the Welcome Back package, which is a national initiative in Zimbabwe that supports the tracing, counselling, and re-engagement of individuals who have interrupted HIV treatment. Embedding Uzwelo within this package aims to strengthen the quality of provider–client interactions within existing re-engagement efforts, supporting more consistent and effective delivery of care.
Expected outputs: The project aims to make empathetic care a consistent part of routine HIV service delivery in Zimbabwe. Specifically, it expects to:
- Develop practical, ready-to-use tools, including prompts, SOPs, and job aids that providers can apply day-to-day
- Embed Uzwelo within the Welcome Back package to support re-engagement of clients who have interrupted HIV treatment
- Improve the quality and consistency of provider–client interactions across health facilities
- Strengthen client retention and return-to-care across the HIV cascade
Sites: Pre-workshop site visits were conducted at two facilities in Zimbabwe to inform the co-design process:
- Northern Suburbs Clinic (Bulawayo Province)
- Esigodhini Hospital (Matabeleland South Province)
The co-design workshop was held in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, bringing together stakeholders from across provinces.
Scale-up sites will be determined by the Ministry of Health and Child Care (MoHCC) and OPHID, who will provide guidance on the selection of facilities for implementation of the Uzwelo approach across the country.
Target population: Healthcare providers (HCPs) involved in HIV service delivery (including clinicians, nurses, counsellors, and community health workers) and people living with HIV (PLHIV), particularly individuals who have interrupted treatment and require support for re-engagement in care.
Duration: 15 months
