'Time to Deliver' - Renewed Commitments at 16th International AIDS Conference Churches Called to Engage More, Show Their Work
TORONTO, Canada/GENEVA, 21 August 2006 (LWI) - "Time to Deliver," the theme of the 16th International AIDS Conference (IAC), held 13-18 August 2006 in Toronto, Canada, echoed the need for action, not just words, in responding to the global HIV and AIDS pandemic. Discussion during the conference focused on prevention strategies, especially for women, universal access to treatment, and new leadership in galvanizing responses to the pandemic, as well as the fight against stigmatization. The faith-based and inter-religious community was well represented among the 24,000 participants.
Platform for People Living with HIV
"The conference has given a lot of opportunity to people to share their practices and raise awareness to the general public once again, about HIV and AIDS," said Karen Platter, chairperson of the Christian Host Committee for the conference. "In that sense, the conference has been successful. It re-energizes people who are working on HIV and AIDS to go back and continue the fight."
Bishop Johannes Ramashapa from the Botswana Diocese of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Southern Africa noted that "the conference has managed to bring in more people living with HIV, [and] served as a platform for them. That was a big achievement." He continued, "The conference has brought more hope: the research looks promising, even though we are still far from developing a vaccine against HIV. Going back to my ministry, I will scale up the fight against stigma, especially among pastors."
Faith-Based Involvement
In order to prepare their participation in the IAC, representatives of faith-based organizations had met prior to the conference in ecumenical and interfaith pre-conferences, during which they had affirmed their commitment and called for concrete action.
Rev. Mark S. Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and president of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) was candid throughout the conference. "As a global religious leader of 66 million Lutherans in the world and the religious leader of 5 million Lutheran Christians in the United States, I publicly promise to stand in solidarity with you and let the commitments made here, and articulated here, shape my leadership and my rhetoric," he said during one of the panel discussions.
"When it comes to a time to deliver for religious communities, I believe that there are at least four dimensions to what this delivery looks like for us in religious leadership. It means, first of all, that we confess our complicity; secondly, it means that we claim our capacity; third, it means that we name our responsibility; and fourth is that we submit to public accountability and transparency," the LWF president told journalists at a press conference.
Recognition
The LWF was represented by a 21-member delegation of AIDS coordinators from its member churches and Department for World Service field programs. The group's coordinator, Dr Sheila Shyamprasad, the HIV and AIDS consultant to the LWF Department for Mission and Development said the team members had benefitted from the information sharing and networking at the conference. While the participation of faith-based groups in the IACs "has developed immensely," she noted, they still need to enhance their visibility at such conferences "considering what we do in the field."
The absence of political leaders at this major event did not go unnoticed. "Government representatives were missing at the conference, yet in the end they are the policymakers," said Betty Makoni, director and founder of "Girl Child Network," a grassroots organization in Zimbabwe, which counsels and supports girls in rural areas, including victims of sexual abuse.
The network received the IAC's inaugural "Red Ribbon Award," for best practice in overcoming women's inequality. The award, which will be presented every two years, is designed to honor and celebrate outstanding community leadership and action that has helped curtail the spread and impact of HIV and AIDS.
Makoni expressed concern that the conference had not focused enough on the urgency for universal treatment access. "There are a lot of people on the ground still waiting for treatment. The number of lives lost is worrying. The urgent need [to make] drugs available as soon as possible did not really come out at this conference," she said.
AIDS 2008 in Mexico City
For the next IAC, to be held in August 2008 in Mexico City, Mexico, there was a wish for more Latin American presence and increased faith-based involvement. Richard Fee, general secretary of the Presbyterian Church of Canada said, "I would urge especially the faith-based organizations in Mexico to be much more inclusive.(*) I have felt that there are gaps in the representations from other faith-based organizations. I hope that could be expanded."
Platter emphasized the need for faith-based communities to become more integrated in different areas like the women's, children, and youth networking zones, and in the main conference itself. "I would like to see us joining hands with people who are in the fight against AIDS, and setting aside our differences, whether they may be in theology or morality, and looking at what?s best," she said.
Linda Hartke, coordinator of the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance (EAA), concluded, "If we take anything away from this conference, it's that we need to work together. We need to find ways to strengthen our collaboration , and that includes with faith communities." (883 words)
(By LWI correspondent Julia Heyde, with additional reporting from the EAA Media Team in Toronto, Canada. More information about the ecumenical and interfaith pre-conferences and the 2006 International AIDS Conference is at http://iac.e-alliance.ch/index.php)
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(The LWF is a global communion of Christian churches in the Lutheran tradition. Founded in 1947 in Lund, Sweden, the LWF currently has 140 member churches in 78 countries all over the world, with a total membership of 66.2 million. The LWF acts on behalf of its member churches in areas of common interest such as ecumenical and inter-faith relations, theology, humanitarian assistance, human rights, communication, and the various aspects of mission and development work. Its secretariat is located in Geneva, Switzerland.)
[Lutheran World Information (LWI) is the LWF?s information service. Unless specifically noted, material presented does not represent positions or opinions of the LWF or of its various units. Where the dateline of an article contains the notation (LWI), the material may be freely reproduced with acknowledgment.]
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