HIV/AIDS

The Ecumenical HIV and AIDS Initiative in Africa (EHAIA) has recently documented the impact it has achieved since 2002. While commemorating its 10th anniversary this year, EHAIA reflects on how churches have become “HIV-competent”, meaning they are well informed about HIV, are welcoming HIV positive people and are fighting against HIV and AIDS in Africa and beyond.

Rev. Dr Nyambura Njoroge is always reminding herself of the daily lives of people living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa. Their battle for dignity and enormous resilience keeps inspiring her while she coordinates World Council of Churches Ecumenical HIV and AIDS Initiative for Africa (EHAIA).

Njoroge is a Presbyterian minister, a leading theologian and ecumenist from Kenya. She has been associated with EHAIA since 2002. This is a project which has accompanied churches in Africa in dealing with HIV through information, training, sharing of resources and networking.

In a new book titled Parenting: a Journey of Love author Dr Fulata Lusungu Moyo of the World Council of Churches (WCC) offers profound perspectives on parenting, especially in context of HIV/AIDS in Sub Saharan Africa.

Thirteen West African countries. Thousands of youth and women. The numbers are daunting. But Ayoko Bahun-Wilson, West Africa regional coordinator of the Ecumenical HIV and AIDS Initiative in Africa (EHAIA), is determined to help West African youth become conscious, committed and prepared to fight to reduce the rate of HIV infections.

For churches in Africa, the Old Testament has historically occupied a prominent place in theological thinking. “Our theology is constructed with the image of God in the Old Testament,” reflects Charles Klagba, theological consultant for the Ecumenical HIV and AIDS Initiative in Africa (EHAIA).

The HIV pandemic has been on the world stage for more than three decades now. For most of that time the World Council of Churches (WCC) and its member churches have been deeply involved in making churches and theological institutions HIV-competent, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.

Dr Susan Parry has turned her vision of the “AIDS-competent church” into a reality that has helped thousands of people across southern Africa and the rest of the world whose lives are affected by HIV.

Parry explains the need to move beyond the “AIDS-friendly church” to the “AIDS-competent church”, noting that, while the first denotes tolerance, acceptance, and a welcoming attitude, the AIDS-competent church goes many steps further.

Hundreds of pupils from more than 10 schools in Mthatha marched through the streets of the town on Saturday morning in support of abstaining from sex.
 


The marchers, who started in front of the town hall just after 10am, made their way to the John Wesley Hall where they were addressed by speakers.
 


Event organiser Puleng Nayile, who is chairperson of Mthatha’s HIV/Aids Peer Educators, said the purpose of the march was to get the message of abstinence across to the youth.

South Africa’s AIDS deaths have fallen by nearly 25% due to scaled up access to life-saving drugs, which the government for years had refused to provide, new research has shown.

“The rapid expansion of South Africa’s anti-retroviral programme appears to have slowed down the AIDS mortality rate in recent years,” said the Actuarial Society of South Africa (ASSA) in a statement.

The society’s model, released this week, estimates that AIDS deaths fell from 257,000 six years ago to 194,000 last year.

Written by Maria Mackay

A Zambian HIV worker is appealing to Christians around the world to keep praying for sufferers of HIV and AIDS.

Hope Siwale, of the Tearfund-supported EFZ Christian charity, said she feared that the shortfall in the Global Fund to treat HIV, tuberculosis and malaria could reverse many of the advances in treating the disease and put additional pressure on governments and churches in developing nations.