Action Call to Faith Leaders

posted: 08/04/2011

Religious leaders around the world are urged to really think about how faith communities help or hinder support for people living with HIV, in a new report.

The report, Prayer alone is not enough – people’s stories of HIV and Faith was published on World Health Day, 7 April. It gives first-hand accounts of people living with HIV, and of people working to support people with HIV, in poor and marginalised communities in Zimbabwe, Yemen, and El Salvador.

"The stories are deeply personal, often brutally honest and challenging, and share emotions that range from grief to encouragement, from despair to hope," said Christine Allen, Progressio's executive director.

Wide range of people

Interviewees, including Christian and Muslim faith leaders, child heads of household, sex workers, former gang members, and development workers, reflect movingly on their own personal experiences of faith in the light of HIV.

• Jane, a married woman living with HIV in Zimbabwe, said: "People living with HIV don't want church members to know because they will be stigmatised."
• Abdulla Mohammed El Qadesi, an imam in Yemen recalls: "I used to think HIV was a punishment from God… I changed my mind about it".
• Ana Deysi in El Salvador said: "As a person of faith working in the HIV community, I consider the HIV community to be my community."

Human Face for the Future
The report gives a human face to a diverse group of people living with HIV in difficult circumstances - all of whom have shared their experiences in the hope of building understanding.

Faith matters with HIV
Their personal accounts demonstrate that the attitudes and behaviours of faith communities really do matter and can make the difference between people living with HIV being able to access care, support and treatment or not.

"Mobilising faith communities to break the silence, confront stigma and condemn discrimination surrounding HIV is essential if we are to overcome this barrier" the report concludes.

Prayer alone is not enough is an invaluable insight to anyone willing to examine their own attitudes and reflect on how we, and faith communities especially, can play a positive part in an effective response to HIV.

Faith and Religion Connections

posted: 09/12/2010

A new UK HIV and Faiths Directory, called HIV Connecting with Faith is now out. This directory, from African Health Policy Network, highlights Muslim and Christian organisations that provide support and - or services for people living with HIV.

The directory is useful and is for health-care professionals, faith communities, community based organisations, formal and informal support groups, statutory and voluntary sector organisations, funders and people living with/affected by HIV.

Eunice Sinyemu, Head of Policy and Deputy CEO at AHPN said

“This directory is an invaluable resource and easy to use. Because faith is an integral part of many people living with and affected by HIV, faith leaders can contribute significantly to the reduction of HIV related stigma and discrimination by providing support to people living with and affected by HIV”.

Faith in NW England 

The only entry in the Directory from NW England is 

Holy Innocents, Fallowfield, Manchester
Church of England (catholic)
Bill Raines, Rector
Wilbraham Road, Fallowfield
Manchester
M14 6JZ
0161 224 1310 / 0161 224 0535
This church provides Counselling / Advice, promotes HIV testing, offers 1:1 emotional support and has information and resources on HIV


The HIV Connecting with Faith directory can be downloaded from AHPN here.

The faith directory is part of AHPN’s faith Changing Perspectives’ campaign.

African Pastor preaches 'Jesus had HIV'

posted: 26/08/2010

A pastor led 100 in his congregation to take HIV tests and preached a sermon called "Jesus was HIV-positive," in an attempt to break the conspiracy of silence by the South African church.     
 

Xola Skosana said that HIV is stigmatised as evil and a sin in the country that has the world's largest number of people with HIV. Pastor Skosana, 43, took a HIV test in front of his congregation last Sunday at the non-denominational Way of Life church in Khayelitsha, Cape Town. The test was also taken by 100 young people from the township.
 

The pastor said he chose the title "Jesus was HIV-positive" for his sermon to draw attention to "a very serious issue". “In many parts of the Bible, God put himself in the position of the destitute, the sick, the marginalised," he said. "When we attend to those who are sick, we are attending to Him. When we ignore people who are sick, we are ignoring Him."
 

Jesus’s words
Skosana cited a passage in the Bible where Jesus says: "I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me." But he has had a hostile reaction in some quarters.
"The scathing attacks I've received from Christians are unbelievable," he said. "They're saying you can't reconcile Jesus and AIDS. They assume it means Jesus was promiscuous and had a louche lifestyle with many sexual partners."
 

Skosana has two sisters died from HIV. One died last month at the age of 44. The other died in 2003 in her early 20s.
 

South African church condemned
He condemned the national church for failing to tackle the issue when nearly 1,000 people are dying from HIV-related causes every day. The South African government had been accused of AIDS "denialism" but has more recently been praised for its prevention and treatment programmes.
"It baffles me why in the church this is the most untalked-about subject," Skosana said. "If I went to church and never heard the pastor talk about this, I would assume I must go home and die in silence. The message is that it's an unpardonable sin and we must just forget about HIV/AIDS.
 

God cares
"My responsibility as a pastor is to open a Bible and paint a picture of a God who cares for people and wants the best for them, not who judges them and is ashamed of them."
He called on other churches to be more open about the subject. "I hope this will change the paradigm, especially in the Pentecostal background. I come from the Pentecostal background and I know this discussion is totally alien there."
 

HIV information and advice
Skosana will not disclose the result of his public HIV test in case it puts pressure on the churchgoers who followed his example. They had heard him explain the virus, possible treatments and the importance of knowing their status and were given professional counselling.
 

Praise for example
Skosana's stance was praised by South Africa's National AIDS Council. Mark Heywood, its deputy chairperson, said: "I applaud his actions. It's very important that church leaders set an example, destigmatising HIV and encouraging testing so people know their status. There are many churches that have done a lot to combat HIV. The problem is that the church as a whole has not been vocal enough. It's often been left to individual church leaders and organisations. We would like to hear a clearer message."
 

Source
YouTube

Image

Pastors guide to HIV ministry
Other Religions and HIV guides in our Information Bank 
 

Religions Pledge End to HIV Stigma

posted: 25/03/2010

People from the main world religions have promised to prevent HIV stigma, in a public declaration, welcomed by a senior U.N. official, as a sea change in attitudes.
 

40 Personal Pledges

Representatives of some 40 religions and faith groups including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism, ended a two-day event in the Netherlands by signing a "personal commitment to action." Each vowed to "be clear in my words and actions that stigma and discrimination towards people living with or affected by HIV is unacceptable."
 

Canon Gideon Byamugisha, an Anglican priest from Uganda, said the way his church treated him after he discovered he had HIV should be an example. "They reacted with support and understanding. There were sections who were annoyed and disappointed I was HIV positive, but a big number opted to give me the love, care and support I needed." Byamugisha’s first wife died with HIV and he has now remarried - a woman with HIV. He told church officials in 1992 that he had HIV and was one of the first African clerics to reveal he has HIV.
 

UN welcomes religions’ promises
Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, the United Nations Population Fund's executive director, called Tuesday's statement "a sea change. There is no talk about sinning or repentance," she said. "It is more about acceptance of people living with HIV."
 

Remorse and regret
The delegates acknowledged that some church and faith groups had played an active role in the stigmatisation they now have committed to end. "With remorse we regret that those living with HIV have at times been at the receiving end of judgment, rejection ... ," they wrote in a statement. "We need to make greater efforts to ensure that all people living with HIV find a welcome within faith communities."
 

The statement came after two days of discussions in which Byamugisha said that delegates sometimes struggled "with how to balance between communicating the religious messages that talk about morality and spirituality (and) public health challenges on the ground."
Rev. Richard Fee of the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance, which helped organise the meeting, said that religious groups can now join the front line in challenging HIV.
"If we are going to deal with this pandemic, the way we are going to get the message to every village in the world through education is through faith-based groups which do touch every village in the world," he said.
 

Source

Catholics and World AIDS Day

posted: 19/11/2009

‘Can you drink the cup that I will drink? - HIV/AIDS: meeting the challenges, exploring the questions’ was a lecture given earlier this year to Catholics for AIDS Prevention and Support (CAPS) at Westminster Cathedral Hall, London.

Professor Margaret Farley's (Yale University divinity school, USA) lecture was followed later by a conference on HIV/AIDS, at Roehampton University, London. Her lecture and the response are here.
 

She spoke about the All-Africa Conference: Sister to Sister (AACSS) organisation in sub-Saharan Africa, about the situation in sub-Saharan regions and countries, about the guiding principles that have shaped the work of Sister to Sister, and about the sources of hope that sustain the women in African with whom they work.

‘Can you drink the cup that I will drink? - HIV/AIDS: meeting the challenges, exploring the questions’ lecture

All-Africa Conference: Sister to Sister (AACSS)

Catholic HIV and other worship materials

World AIDS Day Resources: Positive Rites is a 90+ page booklet of worship resources, many of which deal particularly with previous World AIDS Day themes. It also contains some of the services used in past years at Southwark Anglican Cathedral, CAFOD/Caritas events throughout the world.
£3.00 each, or £5.00 (for two, incl. p/p) from Catholics for AIDS Prevention & Support (CAPS), PO Box 24632, London E9 6XF - 020 8986 0807 - e-mail  

These websites have HIV and worship materials you can download:

Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD) -
Christian Aid
Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance 
The Balm in Gilead 
The African American Lectionary 

This website, Catholic Relief Services College, has academic resources for Catholics and others interested in HIV and the church's response, including a series of 7 videos. 

Positive Catholics is a peer support network of men and women, who are living with HIV and have a catholic faith.        email