wfn.org | Indian church steps up education programs to deal with threat of AIDS

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2001-224

Indian church steps up education programs to deal with threat of AIDS

     (ENI) One of India's biggest Protestant churches is stepping up its AIDS 
education work in the face of a growing threat to the country from HIV/ AIDS.

     "With AIDS becoming one of the biggest health hazards for the nation, we are 
extending our HIV awareness campaign to all the dioceses," according to Karuna 
Roy, who coordinates the work on HIV/ AIDS of the Church of North India (CNI), 
known as the church's "AIDS Wing."

     Of 34.3 million people in the world living with HIV/ AIDS, more than 10 per 
cent--3.7 million--live in India, according to recent UNAIDS figures.

     In its campaign against HIV/ AIDS, the church has been targeting school 
students and young people. The church has already trained 3,000 school students 
between 15 and 18 years old in the capital, New Delhi, to become "AIDS teen peer 
educators," Roy told ENI. "These children in turn spread the message on how to 
prevent AIDS."

     Even non-Christian schools in Delhi had invited the " AIDS wing" to organize 
AIDS education programs, she added.

     Now the church is expanding the scheme to include all 26 dioceses, which 
together cover two-thirds of India. Earlier this month, the church organized a 
training program for 60 youth directors and volunteers from each diocese who in 
turn will be able to launch similar programs among school students in their 
areas.

     According to one of the participants at the course, Deepak Yohan, from 
Razalpura near Indore in central India, "Christians are the first religious group 
to take up educating the public on how to keep away AIDS."

     "AIDS is already becoming a serious problem even in remote areas. So, [the] 
church has the duty to spread this [awareness] campaign," Yohan, a trained social 
worker, told ENI.

     Another participant, Shona Thangavel, from the diocese of Nagpur in central 
India, told ENI she hoped "to take the message to the remote villages, especially 
to women folk, who have not even heard about AIDS ."

     "In the cities, people have better chances to know how AIDS spreads. But, 
for the rural people, they have little chances for that," she added.

     A national health survey last year found that 60 per cent of women in India 
had not heard of AIDS. The figure was far higher among women in remote areas and 
among women who were illiterate.

     The AIDS awareness program is organized by the church's synodical board of 
health services (SBHS). Samuel Kishan, who heads the SBHS, told ENI:  "After this 
training, our youth directors and volunteers will go back to their diocese to 
launch the awareness campaign in their dioceses and church centers. 

     "We have to make use of the youth in the campaign against the spread of Aids 
as youth are the most vulnerable part of the society."

     The Church of North India was inaugurated in 1970 as a union of six 
Protestant and Anglican churches.