wfn.org | AANA - BULLETIN No. 33/02 (c)

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>]

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AANA Bulletin							Bulletin APTA
Acting Editor - Mitch Odero					Acting Editor - Silvie Alemba

FEATURES  SECTION

Malawi And Zambia Take AIDS Battle To Work Places

In a determined bid to win the war against HIV/AIDS, Malawi and Zambia have 
adopted multi-sectoral approaches which are bold moves hoped to strengthen 
and support the war.  Our Special Correspondent Hobbs Gama found that the 
business sector had to join in haunted by the fear of closures as HIV/AIDS 
took its toll.

T
he impact has been heavy. Employers and companies were losing out and 
denied profits as HIV/AIDS took its tool on the productive segment of the 
workforce.  People worked only a few days due to poor health while 
absenteeism became the norm as they attended to relatives affected or 
infected with the disease. In general, everything felt the pinch down to 
the disruption of the social economic fabric.

According to figures from the National Aids Commission (NAC) about one 
million Malawians of the 12 million population have so far died since HIV 
was first diagnosed in 1985. The 15 to 49 age bracket is sharing the 
highest prevalence of the virus.

Estimates indicate that every day, an average of 267 people are infected 
with the virus and 139 die from Aids related illnesses. The pandemic is 
creating increasing numbers of orphans 400,000 in Malawi and 14 million 
worldwide.  Malawi is one of the hardest hit countries in southern Africa.

To address the challenges posed by AIDS, a partnership was hatched between 
government, the labour movement, the private sector and non-governmental 
organisations (NGOs).

The declining productivity of the industry, high costs of bills for 
treating HIV/AIDS patient workers and those incurred in training and 
recruiting to replace workers who died of the disease and the almost daily 
funeral costs of workers - prompted a multi-sectoral approach.

The Malawi government sought support from the US Department of Labour to 
establish an HIV/AIDS Work Place Education and Policy Project as a 
partnership between the Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training and 
Project Hope, a US based NGO.

The programme includes the Employers Consultative Association of Malawi, 
The trade union organisations, the Confederation of the Malawi Chambers of 
Commerce and Industry (MCCCI), National Aids Commission, and the 
International Labour Organisation (ILO).

In June 2000 ILO adopted a Code of Practice on HIV/AIDS and the World of 
Work, finalised by the experts from all regions with the fundamental aim of 
helping to safeguard conditions of decent work and protect the rights and 
dignity of workers and all people living with HIV/AIDS.

During the launch of the project recently in Blantyre, Malawi's Vice 
president Justin Malewezi lauded the initiative as a bold response to the 
epidemic causing business and the economy a huge blow.

"For this reason, we invite the private sector to invest more in care and 
treatment of workers and their families. Treatment of opportunistic 
infections and there must be access to Anti-retrovirals (ARVs) will 
contribute to increased labour productivity and preserve Malawi's vital 
human capital as the foundation for economic growth and development," said 
Malewezi.

Malawi is not alone in the new means of the fight against Aids.  Her 
neighbour Zambia is proving to move forward with the message of HIV/AIDS in 
business places. Pushed by irregular work attendance experienced by 
companies due to frequent illnesses, Zambian executives called for a forum, 
which in April 2002 culminated to the formation of the Zambia Business 
Coalition on HIV/AIDS (ZBCA). It was to provide care and support to the 
affected and infected.

The idea was a borrowed leaf from Asia which six years ago established the 
Thailand Business Coalition with support from the United Nations AIDS 
Programme (UNAIDS).

A delegation from the country was dispatched to Thailand to learn the 
initiative resulting in the private sector AIDS prevention and control 
programme. The areas being to advocate for business action on the pandemic 
and strengthen and support the response to the problem. In that way, the 
vulnerability of individual workers could be checked, while also 
alleviating the impact of the epidemic at the workplace.

Zambia is another shaky economy of southern Africa with widespread poverty. 
HIV/AIDS is adding to the already inflicting economic woes. It is currently 
one of the hunger hardest hit in the region; the others are Malawi, 
Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Swaziland.

Grace Mumba is the assistant field coordinator of the organisation. She 
says as an umbrella body, it was charged to speaheard HIV/AIDS related 
activities among businesses and business houses and harness their efforts, 
capacity and potential towards HIV/AIDS prevention, care and mitigation.

"A negative impact was being increasingly felt in the private sector as 
companies lost profit and productivity. People could not go to work 
regularly as AIDS took all the time," she bemoans.

At least a few companies in Malawi have embarked on the programme. However, 
the state of the private sector in Malawi gives less hope as poor economic 
performance and many companies are closing down because of falling 
business. There is a general feeling the situation was already too 
burdening for them to support the AIDS afflicted.

Indeed, since Malawi started donor driven privatisation programme, a lot of 
companies have closed down and others retrenched workers. The impact of the 
IMF and World Bank imposed reform programme in the name of privatisation is 
really doing more harm than good to the struggling economy.

David Whitehead and Sons (DWS) the sole textile company in Malawi is one of 
the companies that launched the programme. It has had poor performance in 
the past few years due to increasing quantity of second hand clothes from 
the Far East. Business slacked and it drastically reduced its work force.

One cloth designer at the company who did not want to be mentioned said the 
workers retrenched three years ago had many hitches to get their terminal 
benefits while a lot more have had no increment in a couple of years as the 
company lost business and experienced declining profits.

"I wonder how such a company can take care of  infected workers and their 
families. And it seems one day there won't even be support for emergencies 
like funeral," he said.

All said the initiative to take the message of war against AIDS to people's 
working place, was a welcome approach.  There is more openess in 
discussions about AIDS at work places than ever before.

Tracing A Dramatic Past Of A Massive Kenyan Church

The Anglican Church of Kenya has come of age. Recently, it elected its new 
Archbishop.  Our correspondent Andrew Kuria attended the election and 
turned to the archives to dig out a dramatic history of the Church.

T
he election on August 16 of Bishop Benjamin Nzimbi by 28 dioceses of the 
Anglican Church in Kenya (A.C.K.) to replace Archbishop David M Gitari, who 
retires next month marks another milestone for the Church in its 158 years 
of existence in East Africa.

He becomes the fourth Kenyan of African origin to hold the primate's office 
since independence in 1963. The election comes barely a month after the 
election of The Most Rev. Rowan Williams as the Archbishop of Cantebury and 
head of the 70 million Anglicans.

The 58-year old bishop Nzimbi was elected archbishop by 140 electors drawn 
from an Electoral College of all Diocesan bishops, two priests and two lay 
people each from the 28 dioceses. This is the highest number of members of 
the Electoral College in the now massive church in Kenya.

History of the Christian church in Kenya dates back to May 1844 when 
through the Church Missionary Society (C.M.S.)  Dr John Ludwig Krapf  (a 
German) and his wife landed at the Mombasa Port. Two years later, in 1846, 
Dr Krapf , whose wife and baby had died on arrival at the Kenyan port, was 
joined by a fellow countryman, Rev John Rebman. A third German missionary 
joined them but died soon after.

However both Dr Krapf and Rev Rebman established a mission station at Rabai 
in mainland Kenya, away from the Mombasa island. Both missionaries made 
several exploration journeys in East Africa  between 1848 and 1850 and were 
followed by other explorers.

Later the Scramble for Africa years later  coincided with the creation of 
the Diocese of Eastern Africa, which came into being with the consecration 
of the Right Reverend James Hannington in 1884. He was then in charge of 
the mission work in East Africa and Zanzibar.

It was however during Hannington visit to Uganda that through the order of 
the Kabaka Mwanga of Uganda that the Bishop was seized, held prisoner for 
eight days and then was killed.

His successor was Right Reverend H.P. Parker, whose episcopate only lasted 
less than two years as he died while on his way to Uganda.

The Right Reverend A.R. Tucker became the third bishop of the Diocese of 
Eastern Equatorial and will be remembered for the great missionary work 
that he did in this part of Africa.

The Church in Uganda had grown tremendously and it became necessary to 
divide missionary work. This saw the formation of the Diocese of Uganda, 
with Bishop Tucker becoming its first bishop.

The residual diocese - the Diocese of Mombasa (which included British East 
Africa (Kenya) and with mission stations in Central Tanganyika) was then 
formed. The Right Reverend W.G. Peel became its first bishop after 
consecration in June 1899. Time saw the diocese of Mombasa grow 
tremendously during its existence from 1899 to 1916. Its bishop, Rt Rev 
Peel, died in 1916 and with his passing away came the establishment of the 
Angican Church.

This was the time of the First World War and the new bishop, Right Reverend 
R.S. Heywood, who worked as such from 1918 to 1936, became instrumental in 
writing of the first diocesan Constitution in 1921.

Later the Diocese of Central Tanganyika came into being with Right Reverend 
G.A. Chambers being consecrated its first bishop on November 1, 1927.

In 1937 the Right Reverend R.P. Grabbe was consecrated Bishop of Mombasa . 
Soon after, it became apparent that the Anglican Church in Kenya (after the 
Second World War- 1939 to 1945) was marked by internal dissension.  The 
fight for political independence had started. Thus Bishop Grabbe was 
succeeded by the Right Reverend  Leonard J. Beecher in 1953 .

The diocese then became divided geographically into archdeaconries. This 
was followed by the consecration of the first two African bishops - the 
Right Reverend Obadiah Kariuki and the Right Reverend Festo Olang at 
Namirembe Cathedral, Uganda in 1955. Both were two years later  appointed 
suffragan bishops of Fort Hall and Maseno dioceses.

The African social growth and nationalism in politics had then taken root 
and four years later plans for formation of the Church of the Province of 
East Africa led to the final stage of ecclesiastical autonomy from the 
mother church in Canterbury.

The Church of the Province of East Africa at the time incorporated the 
C.M.S. Dioceses of Mombasa and Central Tanganyika and the U.M.C.A. Dioceses 
of Zanzibar, Masasi and South West Tanganyika.

Thus in 1960 came the existence of the autonomous Church of the Province of 
East Africa headed by its first Archbishop, The Most Rev. Leonard  J. Beecher.

It will be recalled that since 1927 the Diocese of Mombasa had comprised 
the whole country - Kenya.
However, 34 years later in 1961, the diocese was divided into three. These 
included Diocese of Maseno, which became under Bishop Festo Olang, Diocese 
of  Nakuru, under Bishop Neville Langford Smith,  Diocese of Fort Hall 
(later Mount Kenya) under Bishop Obadiah Kariuki and the residual Diocese 
of Mombasa (comprising of Nairobi, Southern Highlands and the Coast ) under 
Archbishop Leonard J. Beecher).

This residual diocese of Mombasa was again subdivided in 1965 with Bishop 
Peter Mwang'ombe becoming the bishop of Mombasa diocese of the Church of 
the Province of Kenya.

In the late 1960s came calls for formation of a separate autonomous 
province - Church of the Province of Kenya (CPK). Thus in August 1970 the 
church saw Archbishop Beecher gracefully resign as head of the now 
predominantly African led church.

In Tanzania the Church of the Province of Tanzania was created in July 1970

In the CPK, Archbishop Beecher was succeeded by the Most Rev Festo Habbakuk 
Olang, who on inauguration of the CPK became the first Archbishop and also 
Bishop of the Diocese of Nairobi.

Nine years later (in 1979) he was succeeded by the  Most Rev Manasses 
Kuria. The latter held the seat until 1995 when the Rt Reverend David 
Mukuba Gitari, then bishop of the diocese of Kirinyaga was elected the new 
Archbishop of the CPK Church.

Worth of note is that from the 1980s the Anglican Church  in Kenya has 
grown to the extent that from its original two dioceses as at independent 
and at the time when it became autonomous from the mother church (in 
England), it now has 28 dioceses.

Two years ago during the time of Archbishop Gitari, who retires on 
September 16 this year (2002) the church was renamed The Anglican Church of 
Kenya (ACK). The newly appointed Archbishop will be enthroned on September 22.