wfn.org | Africa's Churches On the March Against HIV/AIDS

[cfouke@ncccusa.org]

For Immediate Release
AACC Media Team: (011) 237 966 3059 or 3063

AFRICA’S CHURCHES ON THE MARCH AGAINST HIV/AIDS

November 26, 2003, Yaounde, Cameroon -- On a day in which emotions ran the 
gamut from gloom through compassion to hope and celebration, delegates to 
the 8th Assembly of the All Africa Conference of Churches today (Nov. 26) 
devoted their attention to the pandemic of HIV/AIDS that is sweeping the 
continent.

The statistics are bad enough – 20 million people already dead, 14
million 
children orphaned, 14,000 new infections every day, 2.8 million children 
under the age of 15 infected in sub-Saharan Africa.

In many places on the continent, these incomprehensible figures are made 
worse by the stigma and discrimination that are experienced by people with 
faces and names who have disclosed their HIV-positive status.

The Assembly heard from pastors and priests who are living with the virus 
in churches that sometimes still think of HIV/AIDS as God’s punishment
for 
sin; from a young Cameroonian man whose disclosure that he was sero-
positive meant the end of his relationship with his girlfriend, the mother 
of his child; from a Congolese mother of five who was ejected from her 
home and stripped of most of her possessions by her husband’s family,
who 
blamed her for his death.

Others living with the virus told of amazing support from their church 
communities and of support groups that were organizing for mutual care and 
advocacy. The Assembly received with joy stories of people who were living 
full lives despite carrying the virus for over a decade, and of a couple 
who have been blessed with a child, despite the father’s sero-positive 
status.

Hope rose when the delegates received news of the partner organizations 
committed to working with the African church at local, national, regional 
and continental levels who stood ready to commit human and financial 
resources to the tasks of behavior formation and modification, the 
provision of affordable or free anti-retrovirals and the support for 
caregivers of all ages, especially the aged and very young.

Confidence that, with God on our side, HIV/AIDS can be managed and will 
ultimately be defeated found its expression in a candlelight procession 
through the streets of Yaounde and the adoption of a 10-point Covenant on 
HIV/AIDS by the delegates.

						
	Dave Wanless - AACC

---------------------------------------------
This message was sent using Endymion MailMan.
http://www.endymion.com/products/mailman/

---
Send E-mail address changes to: nccc_usa@ncccusa.org