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SEE
ALSO
AIDS
in Africa
A
Generation of Hope
Global
Connections: Africa
Promising
start for Zimbabwe's underprivileged children
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| The
East Africa Annual Conference (Burundi, Kenya,
Rwanda, Sudan and Uganda) of the United Methodist
Church has in recent months increased efforts
to raise awareness among women about HIV/AIDS.
"Our aim is to sensitize our women on this
deadly scourge," says Elmira
Sellu, a missionary from Sierra Leone and
Conference Coordinator of the United Methodist
Leadership Development for Women. |
Outside
her makeshift home near Maun Methodist hospital
in Nairobi, Kenya, Grandmother Charity talks
to GBGM Missioner of Hope Sarah
Clarke Mensah. The child in Charity's arms
is one of six left in her care by her deceased
daughter. |
Workshops
addressing the "causes and consequences"
of HIV/AIDS are being organized throughout the conference.
Forty five women participated in the first organized
workshop in Nairobi entitled, "Abundant Life
for Women in Crises." Domestic violence and
drug abuse were identified as contributing to the
spread of the pandemic. "Many women are infected,
because they are powerless in negotiations related
to sexual intercourse," said one of the participants
at the Nairobi workshop.
Early
sexual activities and poverty are also reportedly
at the basis of HIV/AIDS infections. Many young
girls from poor families often resort to prostitution
to support their families, exposing themselves to
the epidemic and other sexually transmitted diseases.
According to media reports, an estimated 22 percent
of teenage girls in Kenya are living with the disease.
The pandemic
has also left a trail of orphans. Often, except
in AIDS cases, when African parents die, their relatives
take in their children. AIDS orphans face constant
discrimination from relatives and other people who
know that their parents died from complications
related to the pandemic. With no one to care for
them, they are forced at an early age to head their
household. During a recent briefing at the United
Methodist Building in Washington, a Ugandan clergy
said that the churches in his country were mobilizing
to care for these orphans. "With financial
incentives, we can persuade relatives to care for
the orphans....but when that is not possible, the
children are placed in orphanages," he said.
"AIDS
has ravaged our continent, Africa. It is imperative
that we educate our people about the disease that
has spread like wildfire," says Mrs. Shimba
Mulunda, who runs the United Methodist Computer
Training Center based in Nairobi. "Unless we
collectively invest our efforts against this disease,
we will lose a lot of lives," she adds. Mrs.
Mulunda has incorporated in the center's curriculum
educational material about HIV/AIDS as part of the
word processing exercises. The center also holds
bi-monthly meetings to discuss the spread and prevention
of the disease.
In the
Kenyan rural areas, the United Methodist Church
is collaborating with other churches to raise awareness
and provide counseling to those already infected
by the disease. "Right now I am working with
other HIV/AIDS coordinators and community members
to lay down church strategies against the disease,"
says Mrs Yema
Luhahi, a GBGM missionary assigned to Meru,
Kenya.
Of the
estimated 24.5 million people infected with HIV/AIDS
in the sub-Saharan Africa, many are living in the
countries that make up the East Africa Annual Conference
of the United Methodist Church. In Kenya, the conference's
headquarters, 2.1 million people have reportedly
been infected. People between the age of 15-49 have
the highest rate of infection. Teenage girls make
up 22 percent of those living with the disease.
| In
Burundi, the pandemic has hit 11.32 percent
of the population, while in Rwanda the rate
is estimated at 11.21 percent. Only 1.5 percent
of Sudanese are said to have been infected by
the disease. According to the United Nations
Development Program (UNDP), at one point Uganda
had one of the highest rate of infection, but
combined government, churches and civil society
efforts have altered the spread of the disease. |
Youth
delegates at the August 2000
AIDS conference in Zimbabwe. Young people
are the hardest hit by the HIV/AIDS crisis.
Orphaned when their mothers succumb to the disease,
many head households even though they are shunned
by traditionally supportive extended family
members. |
by
Mulegwa Zihindula
May
17, 2001
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