Note #9161 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:
06123 Feb. 22, 2006
Activists say WCC must lead global campaign against HIV/AIDS
by Stephen Brown Ecumenical News International
PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil - Campaigners against HIV and AIDS are looking to the World Council of Churches (WCC) to take a lead in encouraging churches around the world to help fight the disease and eliminate the stigma that often comes along with it.
"It is now or never," Dr. Christoph Benn, of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, said during the Assembly of the world's biggest church grouping. "AIDS is the only disease in the world that has led to solidarity between the rich countries and people in the poor countries, in a magnitude that has never been manifested for any other disease."
The statistics demonstrate the urgency of the challenge. In 2005, the United Nations program UNAIDS and the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that the number of people living with HIV has continued to increase in all regions of the world except the Caribbean.
The two groups say the number of people living with HIV globally has reached its highest level, of about 40.3 million, up from an estimated 37.5 million in 2003.
"There was a time when the church was seen as a stumbling block," said the Rev. Gideon Byamugisha, an Anglican from Uganda who in 1992 became the first known priest in Africa to declare publicly that he was HIV positive. "But now we are in a phase of active response."
Byamugisha and another Anglican priest, the Rev. Jape Heath, who discovered in 2000 that he was HIV-positive, have set up the African Network of Religious Leaders living with or personally Affected by HIV and AIDS (ANERELA+), a group that provides support for patients and tries to reduce the stigmatization of HIV-positive people.
HIV-positive people sometimes face a faith-based stigma as well.
"Faith-based stigma originates from the moralistic perspective that people living with HIV brought this on themselves and must therefore be sinners," Heath said. "Thank God we are beginning to change that."
The message that religious groups have a role to play in combating the pandemic was echoed by Renu Chahil-Graf, who coordinates the UNAIDS program in Brazil.
"We strongly believe that churches and faith-based organizations can make a significant contribution in reducing the spread of HIV and AIDS," she told journalists during the Feb. 14-23 Assembly, the first ever held in Latin America.
But some campaigners attending the Assembly said they were disappointed that HIV and AIDS had not had a higher profile on the agenda.
"I personally think this is a lost opportunity," said Dr. Sue Parry, a physician from Zimbabwe who is the southern Africa coordinator of the Ecumenical HIV/AIDS Initiative in Africa, a WCC program. "HIV/AIDS should be mainstreamed. Many people think HIV is just an African issue, but it's not. Figures show it is rising in other parts of the world."
Parry's concern was echoed by Gracia Violeta Ross Quiroga, of Bolivia, who belongs to an evangelical church and represents the National Network of Bolivian People living with HIV and AIDS.
"We need to have more commitment from the churches," Ross Quiroga said. "The situation of churches in Africa is much better than in the rest of the world. We can learn from Africa. In the churches in Bolivia, not even my church has a formal program on HIV/AIDS. I'm doing the work, and I'm a volunteer - and there's no budget."
Said Parry, "Our whole aim is to build the AIDS-competent church."
"We need to break down the 'them and us,'" added Heath. "As churches we need to stop talking about what we can do for 'them,' (and talk about) what we can do together."
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